Mass Effect: N7
by Blade for Hire
Summary: Best of the best. Six soldiers, one unit, one objective. It was their time to shine, and their time to learn what they could do as a team. (Based on the author's experiences in ME3 multiplayer)
1. Chapter 1

Mass Effect: N7

1

The shuttle doors opened and the young marine squinted his eyes against the sunlight that beamed in. He stood from his seat, throwing his duffel bag strap over his shoulder as he stepped off and looked around, taking in his surroundings with a quick glance. He had no idea where he was now. All he knew was that this was one of the fabled "N7 Training Facilities" the Alliance military said so little about; not the one in Rio de Janeiro, but one of the distant facilities off-world. The soldier had been told he'd been selected for the N7 program, and less than twenty four hours later he and every earthly possession he owned were crammed into a shuttle for a long ride to the facility. That was almost two days ago, and after forty-six hours straight stuck in a shuttle's cargo bay, being able to set foot on any planet was welcome. He ran his free hand back through his dark brown hair over silvery blue eyes set in a mildly rounded face with shallow cheekbones. This planet was arid, dry, but not uncomfortably hot. The facility he found himself in was rather sprawling, yet still small at the same time, the largest of the structures being no more than two stories tall. There was gunfire in the distance, sometimes accompanied by an explosion, no doubt training exercises for N7 recruits. The young soldier reseated his duffel bag on his shoulder as a man about his age in an Alliance uniform with a major's star came confidently walking toward him.

He waved his hand to clear dust the shuttle's engines had kicked up, "Lt. David Wagner?"

The brawny marine, David Wagner, dropped his duffel as he straightened in a proper salute to a superior officer, "Sir, yes, sir."

"At ease, lieutenant." The officer extended his hand, which David shook, "Maj. Fitzgerald. Welcome to N7." The major motioned toward the largest of the buildings as several marines rushed past him to start removing David's things from the shuttle, "Right this way, lieutenant. You're the last to arrive, so we'll be able to get things started now."

David fell into step with the major as they started walking, "With all due respect, major, could I ask why I'm here?"

Fitzgerald nodded as he walked, "You've been selected for a special N7 program. Your particular skill set is needed for this team."

The lieutenant nodded quickly, "Yes, I understand that, sir, but I was under the impression I was already N7; have been for the last two years. So what's going on?"

"I said you've been selected for a _special_ N7 program, lieutenant. You'll understand everything in the briefing." They entered the main building and immediately took a flight of stairs to the second level before ducking into a small, dimly lit room with a line of six chairs along the right wall.

Fitzgerald waved an arm into the room, "Take a seat and wait right here, lieutenant. I need to go rustle up the rest of them. Be back in a minute." With that, the major left David alone in the room. He dropped his duffel next to the second seat in the line and sat down heavily in it. He had no idea what was going on, but it didn't bother him. He enjoyed puzzling through mysteries like this, and it was even more exciting when he was right in the middle of it. After several minutes, the door opened and a slender woman walked in, taking the seat on the end next to David. She threw her long brown hair back off her shoulder as she sat down and crossed her leg over the other.

"Hi." David extended his hand, "Lt. David Wagner."

The woman leaned over to shake his hand, "Hello, David. I'm Lt. Faulkner, but since we're the same rank, you can call me Megan in off-hours." She spoke with a gentle British roll in her voice.

"Nice to meet you, Megan." David leaned his elbows on his knees, "So…you have any idea why we're here?"

Megan shrugged, "No clue. I just got here a few hours ago myself."

The door opened again and someone else came through, a sturdy man with high-and-tight blonde hair and green eyes. He saw there were people in the room and immediately made his way to David.

"_Güttentag_." He spoke in clear German with a stiff matching accent, "Com. Markus Krause, N7." He extended his hand to David.

"Commander on deck!" David stood and saluted, with Megan also following with the call-out.

Com. Krause waved them both down, "For pity's sake. There's no need for that right now."

Megan sat down again and David dropped his salute as he nodded, "Sorry, commander."

"Please, during off-hours call me 'Markus', or 'Mark' if you prefer." The commander pointed at David, "But make no mistake, while on duty, my name is 'commander'."

"Yes, sir." David nodded as he sat down, "So would you happen to know why we're here, sir?"

Markus shook his head as he sat down a seat away from David, "I've been told not to discuss it before the briefing."

David's eyes brightened, "So you do know. That makes one of us."

Over the next few minutes, three more people joined them in the room, a slender woman with short black hair, a sturdy blonde with a scar on her neck, and a young man with thick red hair who pulled the last seat on the end further way from everyone before sitting down. Six people, all soldiers, all N7-rated, sat gathered in the small briefing room, and only one among them knew why they were here. Several minutes of conversation were concluded when the door opened for a final time and Maj. Fitzgerald came in. Everyone, starting with Markus and David, all stood and snapped to attention when he came in the room, even the unfriendly-looking redhead apart from everyone else.

The major stood in front of everyone, "At ease. Take a seat." He set the datapad he was holding down on a table behind him before folding his arms over his chest, "Welcome to Interplanetary Combatives Training, Division 2. Division 2 is the covert operations, direct-action, black ops branch of N7. We're a very small portion of the overall N7 program." He gestured to everyone, "Everyone in this room – including myself – comprises the entirety of Division 2. Fewer people, less red tape, more work gets done; that's how we roll. You've all been selected for Division 2 due to your unique skill sets and your proficiency in those skills. N7 is the best of the best in the Alliance military, and you are the best of that. Heck, I've seen your records; some of you actually qualify for Spectre recruitment. I'm not going to lie to you: everything from this point out will be the toughest you have ever faced in your life. The training is going to be tough; the missions are going to be tougher. But that's why we picked you, because you can rise to the challenge. That said, I want to give you one last chance to back out. If you want out, you'll be transferred back to your old unit; no muss, no fuss. Just speak up now."

After a long and quiet moment, the German, Markus, raised his hand, "If I may, sir. It looks like I speak for everyone when I say that we're in. You say we're the best, and this is our chance to prove it."

The major nodded, "Well, I guess that settles it. Before we continue, I do need to settle some SOP with you guys since you're all new to this. Division 2 is a covert branch of the military; we expose minimal information while in the field. We use codenames and your new combat uniforms and hard-suits will not have name or rank visible on them. Memorize each other's codenames. I'd recommend using them in the barracks during off-hours to that end. Without further ado, we'll go ahead with introductions. For those of you who I failed to introduce myself to, my apologies; I'm Maj. Fitzgerald. 'Tom' or 'Fitz' in off-hours, but keep the rank in mind when you use them. I'm the director of Division 2 and I'll be your commanding officer as well as intel adviser and shuttle pilot during missions. My codename is 'Zeus'."

Lt. Wagner arched an eyebrow, "A major who flies shuttles?"

"I'm a bit more hands-on than most majors." He picked up the datapad behind him and gestured to Megan, "Now for the field ops. This is Lt. Megan Faulkner, Adept class biotic specialist; marks from superiors for discipline and stability under fire. You'll be augmented and specialized as an N7 Fury. Your codename will be 'Fang'."

Megan furrowed her brow, "Augmented, sir?"

The major nodded, "Yes. You'll be receiving the standard battery of Fury-class cybernetic implants to enhance your biotic abilities. It's kind of ironic that you're marked for stability, because you're going to be specializing in instability. They're also going to teach you how to…what was it?" He looked at his pad, "Phase. They're going to teach you something called 'phase evasion'."

Her eyes widened, "Phasing?"

"Yes. Is there something special about that? I'm not a biotic."

Megan chuckled lightly, "Well, it's considered the pinnacle of biotic control; reducing one's own mass so much as to be able to cross short distances almost instantly. I'd never heard of any human ever mastering it."

The major looked at his pad again, "Well, very few still have, so good luck on that front." He motioned to David, "Next we have Lt. David Wagner, front-line soldier and a dang-good marine if his record is to be believed. Marks from superiors for excellent marksmanship, courage in the face of danger, and…" He looked at his pad again, "…an 'uncanny knack for wide-scale devastation'. You're going to be specialized as an N7 Destroyer. They're going to train and condition you in the use and functions of the T-5V combat power armor. It's quite a nice toy you're going to have, Wagner. I'm very jealous. Your codename is going to be 'Sword'."

The lieutenant smirked, "Destroyer? That sounds promising."

Fitz moved on to the next soldier in line, "Next we have our team engineer, Lt. Mira Simonov; marked for tactical excellence under fire and very high marks in demolitions exercises and bomb disposal. You're going to be specialized as an N7 Demolisher. As the name implies, demolitions expert proficient in the use of a variety of grenade types and demolitions ordnance for differing combat situations. Your codename will be 'Tech'." Lt. Simonov, the blonde with the scar on her neck, simply smiled and nodded in response.

"Next is the team's token Sentinel class soldier, Lt. Com. Markus Krause; marks from superiors for courage under fire and extensive knowledge of electronic systems, particularly those of combat devices. As ranking field officer, he's also going to be in operational command during missions. You're going to be specialized as an N7 Paladin. You're going to be trained and conditioned in the use of an omni-shield as well as several combat devices. Your codename will be 'Delta'."

Markus' brow furrowed, "Omni-shield?"

The major nodded, "An omni-tool upgrade with a directional shield that can stop just about anything. I hear it's quite useful for clobbering things, too, but I'll let you decide that for yourself." Fitzgerald looked at his pad again, "Our next contestant, ladies and gentlemen, is Lt. Sara Montfarette, team infiltrator; very high marks for sniping proficiency and expert in concealment. You're going to be augmented and specialized as an N7 Shadow. They're going to teach you advanced covert movement techniques as well as full close-quarters combat sword training. Your codename will be 'Dagger'."

Lt. Montferette's head came up at the mention, "Sword training?" She spoke with a soft French accent.

"Yes." The major nodded as he picked up a sword about a meter long from next to him, "One of these; reinforced titanium blade with a monomolecular edge. This thing could cut through just about anything. And in case you're wondering why use a sword in modern combat, they're silent, which I think an infiltrator can appreciate."

She nodded slowly, "And you also mentioned augmentation."

"Standard battery of Shadow-class implants to improve agility and mobility." The major checked his pad again, "Last, but certainly not least, is Lt. Andrew McTavish, Vanguard class biotic combat specialist; marks from superiors for high aggression in combat as well as high marks in close-quarters exercises. You're going to be augmented and specialized as an N7 Slayer. They're going to teach you some advanced biotic combat techniques, and – something your record says you'll appreciate – close-quarters combat sword training. Your codename is going to be 'Hammer'."

The red-headed biotic, Lt. McTavish, nodded, "You mentioned augmentation. I assume it's gonna be the same as what Lt. Faulkner is gettin'?" His words rolled out with a thick Irish inflection.

"Similar. Slayer-class implants are kind of a mix of Fury-class and Shadow-class. You'll have implants to enhance your biotic abilities, but also some to increase mobility. They're also going to teach you the same 'phase evasion' that Lt. Faulkner will be learning."

The biotic soldier nodded with a smirk, "Sounds nice. Can't wait to get my hands on that blade."

Fitzgerald put his datapad down behind him, "So that's everyone. Before we dismiss, I want everyone to take a good look around at the people in this room. This isn't just a team, it's _your_ team; your family. We are going to be all each other has for the foreseeable future. I'd like to see us all get along as best we can. The missions you're going to face after your two weeks of training are going to be the toughest anyone's ever seen. No backup, no support, no reinforcements, very low survival index. Good camaraderie in a team this small could mean the difference between life and death for you. Your training begins tomorrow at 0600 sharp. Until then, all of your belongings have been moved into Barracks 4. I suggest you go make yourselves at home and get plenty of rest. You're going to need it. Dismissed." With that said, the major picked up his datapad and walked out of the room.

A moment later, Com. Krause stood and looked at everyone, "You heard the man. Let's go get settled in. This is going to be home for a while." Everyone stood to follow him out and on their way to Barracks 4 where their belongings were. The team left the main building and went around to their barracks, where they all found their things deposited in a neat pile in the day room of the barracks. Barracks 4 was evenly divided into three rooms; a small bunk room on either side with a communal day room and equipment armory right in between. Half of the team took the time to look around at the barracks that would be their home for the foreseeable future while the rest went about gathering their things and getting unpacked. About half an hour passed and the pile of stuff in the middle had begun to decrease in size as the Division 2 team went about making their barracks a little homier. It was also then that their field officer decided to break the silence that had begun to linger over all of them.

Delta set a crate of his things down and cracked his back, "Well, if we're all going to be working together, I think we ought to get to know each other a little better. We got the formal introductions out of the way, so how about something a little less formal. I'll start us off. I'm Com. Krausse, but in off-hours you can call me 'Markus' or 'Mark', or use my codename 'Delta'." He turned and motioned to the team Vanguard, "Hammer. What's your name? Andrew, is it?"

Hammer nodded as he opened one of his boxes, "Aye, that's my name. But I've takin' a shine to the codename, too."

"I can tell by your accent that you're definitely of Scots-Irish descent. _Ja?_"

The soldier nodded again, "A little of both, really. I'm Irish by blood, but born a citizen of Scotland. And I have a temper to match them both, so don't go triflin' with me now."

Delta chuckled, "I had no such intention. So where did you grow up?"

"Suburbs of Dublin in good old mother Ireland herself. I can't bring myself to call any other place home; just don't feel right."

"And how was it growing up as a biotic?"

Hammer dropped the lid on the box he was searching and looked at Delta, "You always ask this many questions of total strangers?"

The older German nodded, "If we're going to be risking our lives together, I think we ought to know each other. Don't you?"

"It's okay, Andrew." Megan spoke up from where she was unloading a pile of her BDUs from a crate, "From one biotic to another, I don't think you have anything to fear from this bunch."

Hammer huffed as he resumed rummaging through his box, "Easy for you to say. When my abilities manifested when I was ten, I became the target of every bully in school. I can't remember all the times I was suspended for fighting. I never started a single one of those fights, but I always finished them."

David tossed a box full of his clothes into the guys' bunk room before turning to look at Hammer, "What do you mean? Didn't your parents send you to a school for biotics?"

"Ma and da both worked two jobs each just to keep a roof over our heads. They couldn't afford a fancy private school, so I had to stay in the public education system. It wasn't until I went to college that I met another biotic. While in college, one of my fitness teachers told me I need to find a way to put all my aggression to good use." Hammer smirked mischievously, "I joined the Alliance marines. The rest is history." He looked over at Megan, "I don't suppose you had to deal with any of that bull growin' up, too, did you?"

Fang shook her head, "Oh, no. I never dealt with that. My parents were rather well-to-do accountants in Bradford, so when I manifested at the age of nine they could afford to send me to a biotics school."

Delta chuckled as he opened a crate of his personal belongings, "That must have been nice, not having to face ridicule every day at school."

"Not really. The school was about an hour from home, so I never really saw my parents much. Not that I saw them a lot before that. Anyway, I wasn't in that school long before I was drafted into the Alliance as one of the first combat-proficient biotics."

David lifted another crate of his stuff from the pile, "That means you went through BAAT at Jump Zero, didn't you."

Fang shook her head, "Yes, I did. I can't say I enjoyed my time on Arcturus Station, but I know it made me all the stronger for it."

"Does that mean you're an L2, also?"

She shook her head, throwing a lock of hair in front of her shoulder, "Oh, no. I was upgraded to L5x about three years ago, and I can't begin to describe how grateful I am for that. No more migraines."

Delta closed up another crate before lifting it onto his shoulder, "You're from south Bradford, aren't you. A close friend of my in high school was from there. I recognize the accent."

"Yes, that's right. South Bradford." Fang neatly folded another set of her BDUs, "So what about you, commander? Berlin?"

Delta came back in from depositing his crate with his things, "Stuttgart, actually. I get that a lot. I joined the Alliance military straight out of high school. I liked my first four years as a marine so much I decided to make a career out of it. That and a passion for tinkering with electronics set me up as a Sentinel." He opened another crate and started removing the contents, "Lt. Simonov, you haven't said much of anything, so I can't really place where you're from."

Tech pushed one of her boxes to a pile of others, "I'll save you the time and tell you. I'm from Russia; Siberia, to be exact." True to her word, her alto voice carried a mild Russian inflection.

"And what brought you to the Alliance?"

The engineer shrugged as she briefly checked one box, "A passion for chemistry in school, which turned into a passion for explosives in college. After graduating with a degree in demolitions engineering, I worked for a construction contractor for a few years before joining up." She paused and looked away almost in reverie, "It gives a feeling of power, knowing that something that took months, even years to build, I can destroy in a matter of seconds."

David arched an eyebrow toward her before resuming his unpacking, "I'm suddenly feeling glad that you're sleeping in the other room."

Tech suppressed a chuckle as she continued moving her things, "You don't seem very confident for an American."

"Oh, no. I'm confident. I just have a healthy respect for explosives." He closed and pushed another of his crates toward the guys' room, "By the way, how'd you know I'm American?"

"An ex-boyfriend. You remind me of him."

"And what happened to that relationship?"

Tech shrugged, "The last time I saw him, I broke his arm."

"Well, nice to know I'm off on the right foot." Sword opened a box and closed it after, not finding what he was looking for, "Since it seems to be my turn to share, my history is pretty much the same as the commander's, but for different reasons. I joined the Alliance marines straight out of high school because it was either that or juvenile detention. I ran with some really bad crowds when I was a kid and the Corps set me straight. My first year as a marine taught me the value of discipline, honor, and ethics. When my first four years were up, I renegotiated my contract for career, and here I am."

Delta came of his room brushing his hand together in satisfaction before turning to the only member of the team who hadn't shared her history yet, "I caught a little of your accent, Lt. Montferette. I can tell you're French, but beyond that I have no clue."

Dagger smiled as she unpacked some of her civilian clothes, "Monaco, actually. Or at least that's where I was born. But I call any place where they speak French home." The timbre of her voice combined with her accent made her quite soothing to listen to.

Delta snorted in response, "I hear you there. I haven't had a good conversation in German in several years."

"Well, I don't have a specific accent because I was raised in both Monaco and Paris alternately. My parents divorced when I was little, and I lived with my mother, but spent every other month with my father in Paris. My father was a sniper in the Alliance, and when I went shooting with him one day, he convinced me to join up; follow the tradition."

"And how did that end with you as an N7 infiltrator?"

Dagger shrugged, "I learned everything I know about marksmanship and concealment from my father, and I built on it with my own experience as a teenager in the streets of Monte Carlo. N7 noticed me after a little adventure of hiding from geth on Eden Prime for two days. Apparently, someone important noticed."

"Apparently." Delta went over to a console on the wall near the main door and called up a few screens, "As much as I hate to shed informality, duty calls. Our training begins at 0600 tomorrow morning. Three of you – Dagger, Fang, and Hammer – all need to report to the base infirmary for augmentation. The rest of us report to the armory to get new equipment before we hit the training grounds. For tonight, I'm going to report to the rack, and I recommend everyone else do the same soon. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." He turned away from the console and disappeared into the guys' room. Everyone else had a few odds and ends to finish putting away before they could call it a night.

Delta was gone for only a minute before Hammer piped up from his corner of the room, "Am I the only one who noticed somethin' here?"

Sword stopped what he was doing and looked over at him, "What's that?"

"Durin' that little love-in, I couldn't help but notice that everyone on this team is from Earth." Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Hammer at the mention of the world the Reapers took first in their war against all life in the galaxy; the world that apparently was home to everyone on the Division 2 team.

Fang shrugged as she resumed what she was doing, "Maybe the major wanted us all to have something in common."

"Yeah, that's probably it." Sword nodded as he finished up what he was doing, "He did mention how we need to have good camaraderie in the team. He probably wants us all to have something in common to help that along."

Hammer shrugged, "Hmm. I suppose so. Still, I can't help feelin' there's more to it than that." He stood and stretched, "I'm bunkin' down. I had a long trip getting here and I get to be turned into a cyborg tomorrow, so I want to be well rested for it."

Fang closed the box she was looking in and nodded, "He's probably right. I, for one, am exhausted, and I'm getting that augmentation in the morning, too. I'm off to bed. Good night, David."

Sword nodded as she left, "G'nite, Megan." The door closed behind Fang, leaving Sword alone in the day room. He looked around the room and nodded subtly to himself. This was a new chapter in his career as a soldier. It was for all of them. A new chapter and a new challenge, one they all seemed ready to face. He nodded one more time before standing up and heading to his room for the night. The galaxy would never know what hit it.


	2. Chapter 2

2

The next morning, everyone in the Division 2 team reported to their respective places as ordered. Hammer, Dagger, and Fang all headed off to the infirmary for their augmentations while Tech and Delta both went to claim their new hard-suits before going to their first training exercises. Sword made his way to the armory where his new armor was waiting for him. It was love at first sight with the T-5V combat power armor, a suit of armor so strong and heavy it needed ezoe-assisted actuators to make it mobile. Rather than simply putting it on, the suit had a self-disassembly system and had to reassemble itself with him in it. Once on and active, it took some getting used to for things like walking around, but it wasn't more than a few minutes before Sword was ready to hit the training grounds. The helmet didn't lend itself to visibility with a small, well-protected visor, but the internal holographic visual assistance system solved that problem well enough.

Sword found the training area for the Destroyers and snatched up a training rifle from the nearby rack on his way to join the others like him. His weapon of choice, an extensively modified N7 Typhoon LMG, was back in the barracks since they weren't at the live-fire exercises yet. For now, he was stuck with a stripped-down Avenger firing blanks. Sword walked up and joined the group of other Destroyers-in-training, not even ten in all. Everyone's T-5V armor was marked with the colors of their division or platoon as well as some personalization. Due to Division 2's covert nature, Sword wasn't allowed to personalize his armor, but that didn't mean it didn't look good. His armor was black with a "shades of grey" camouflage pattern that was standard for Division 2 soldiers; the whole team's uniforms were colored like this.

"ATTENTION! Line formation!"

The call-out came in a gravelly voice from behind the group, and everyone immediately lined up at full attention; standing up straight, chest out, shoulders back, feet together, arms at the sides with weapon held in the right hand pointed up resting in the crook of the arm. Sword looked around as best as his eyes' field of view would allow, given "full attention" stance didn't allow him to turn his head unless ordered. From the corner of his left eye, he saw a turian come from around behind the line of men. He walked at a good pace down the line, briefly inspecting everyone in the group, occasionally pausing to silently correct a flaw. If the length of his head spines were any indication, he was an older turian, with a large scar down the right side of his face and missing half the mandible on the same side, making him look rather vicious. His armor was jet black with the red arm stripe that N7 fancied so much, the look being rather odd on a non-human. After coming to the end, he turned and walked to the front and center of the line.

He turned to face the men and folded his hands behind his back, "I am former-general Dovan Arterius, and before anyone asks, yes, I am distantly related to the infamous Saren Arterius and not afraid to say it. If anyone has a problem with that, I'll happily break a bone of their choosing later. I retired as a general of the turian fleets just after the Battle of the Citadel three years ago before your military hired me as a trainer. Now it's my job to get you sorry pyjacks fit for combat. I have directly participated in _every_ military action the turian fleet has been involved in since before what you call the First Contact War. I have stormed bunkers, boarded ships, taken bullets, and killed enemy soldiers with my bare hands. When it comes to warfare, I know dang well what I'm talking about. That means that you will hang on my every word as though it were the last you'll ever hear. Do you get me?"

"Yes, sir!" The whole group hollered their response, including Sword.

"I can't hear you! Do you get me?"

"Yes, sir!" The group yelled their answer louder this time.

Gen. Arterius shook his head, "That was pathetic, but you'll work on it. Let's get started." He began pacing in front of the line, "You've each been issued your own suit of T-5V Destroyer combat power armor. You're wearing a state-of-the-art combat hard-suit with light vehicle-grade armor plating and shields. By the time this training course is over, that armor will be as familiar to you as your own skin. The first thing you're going to learn about your armor is limitations. Wearing the T-5V does not make you invincible; it does not make you bullet-proof. So I don't want to see any heroics, stunts, or anything else stupid during this training course. Do you get me?"

"Yes, sir!" The training group yelled their answer louder than last time, trying to find the desired volume for their trainer.

The old turian shook his head, "I still can't hear you! Do you get me?"

"Yes, sir!"

"That was better, but still lousy. The next thing you're going to learn is the suit's inboard weapons and enhancement system. On the right shoulder of your armor is a Hawk Missile Launcher. It locks onto any target you designate and automatically fires Stinger missiles at that target. Open your omni-tools and activate your Hawk launchers now." Everyone in the training group pulled up their omni-tools and activated their launchers as they were ordered. Sword pulled up his launcher controls and activated it, bringing up several activation holograms around the launcher on his shoulder.

"The Hawk Launcher is very accurate and a good support for whatever weapon you use, however keep in mind that your suit's power supply redirects energy from your shield system to power it. Its use comes at the cost of fifty percent of your base shielding." Arterius motioned behind him, "You each have several targets in front of you. You will knock them out using only the Hawk Launcher. If you fire even one bullet from your rifle, you will fail this exercise. You have one minute starting now. Hit it!"

The entire group rushed to the line and started aiming down range as practice targets started springing up. Two of the trainees failed immediately by firing a burst from their rifles, quickly earning them the ire of their trainer. Sword kept his finger off the trigger as he sighted a target, immediately hearing a lock-on tone from his launcher before a Stinger fired off a moment later. The small missile hit the target squarely in the center, exploding and knocking it down. He repeated the process with the next several targets in line. He was targeting another when Arterius sounded a loud horn from his omni-tool.

The turian shut down his tool and pointed away from the range, "Off the range, rookies. Back in line and kill your launchers. That sucked bad!"

Sword looked back at his trainer, "Sir, we didn't have enough time to destroy all the targets."

The old general turned and walked up to him, coming invasively close to his face, "Precisely, knuckle. In the missions you'll be facing, you won't have time to kill everything slowly and methodically. You must learn to prioritize and eliminate targets based on the threat they pose." He pointed back at the range, "If you'll kindly take another look, you'll see that of the four targets you knocked off, only one was high-threat. That leaves two high-threat targets which, in a real combat situation, would've killed you six ways by now." Arterius turned to the rest of the group, "Get it in your skulls now that not properly prioritizing a threat can be fatal not only to you, but your team, as well. You may think you're hard because you're spec-ops, because you're N7, but the milk runs and pillow fights you had for missions before are a thing of the past. These missions will kill you given half a chance. That's why you must learn to prioritize and eliminate high-threat targets and leave the low-threats for later." He turned back to Sword, "I've lost too many good men on missions to let it happen again. You'll get this into your head, or I'll put it there personally. Now back in line, rookie." Sword nodded smartly before turning to get back in line with the rest of the group, shutting down his shoulder launcher as he did.

The turian started pacing in front of them, "On your faces! Push-ups! Count off to two hundred!"

Sword's eyes widened behind his faceplate as he stowed his training rifle and dropped to a push-up position. Two hundred push-ups? Arterius was treating them like machines. As he started counting off, Sword noticed that the push-ups were much easier than he was used to. The T-5V power armor's mobility assistance system included strength enhancement for handling high-recoil weapons, but it also was a big help in melee combat. As they passed the one hundred mark, Sword noticed himself starting to tire. By one hundred fifty, his arms were starting to burn. By the end of the two hundred push-ups, his arms were so dead he could barely pick himself up again. Push-ups were nothing he wasn't used to. Being the rebellious recruit when he was younger, he was issued quite a few push-ups during BT. But this was a whole new ball game. He'd never done more than half this in his career.

Arterius stopped pacing and faced the trainees, "Lesson number two about armor limitations: you just cranked out two hundred push-ups, and you can feel that you're still tired afterward. The T-5V does not give you any new abilities you didn't already have. It only augments the ones you do have. Keep that in mind, and you'll live a lot longer." He began pacing again, "The next function of your armor is the onboard weapon enhancement system, affectionately known as 'Devastator Mode'. Omni-tools up! Activate your Devastator Mode now." Sword called up his omni-tool and turned on his Devastator mode as ordered, bringing up a number of red activation holograms around his armor.

"This mode supercharges the kinetic coils and cooling system of whatever weapon you are presently holding, allowing you to fire it with more punch, greater accuracy, and more shots from your thermal clip. Like the Hawk Launcher, however, this comes at a power cost. The suit's power supply cannot fully run your mobility system while this mode is active, meaning you will lose some agility. However, your ability to take it as well as you dish it out will hopefully negate this cost." Arterius pointed back at the range, "Back on the range, ladies! You have one minute to prioritize and eliminate as many targets as you can in Devastator Mode, starting now. Go!"

The whole group rushed to the line and started putting rounds downfield. Sword sighted a target, but took a moment to evaluate it before firing. After the briefest analysis, he changed targets before firing a burst from his training rifle. He focused on the targets that were larger or looked more heavily armed than the others, trying to prioritize the targets based on threat level. There were a lot more targets than the missile exercise, but they were still dropping like flies. After the minute was up, the old turian general sounded the horn, signaling all the trainees to lower their rifles and head back to the line. Arterius looked at the range for a long moment before nodding firmly and looking at the group.

Once again, he began pacing, "I hope you don't call that 'improvement', because I've seen blood-raging krogan who could aim better. We are going to work on this, people."

Sword took a deep breath and shook his head, "This is going to be a long two weeks."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dagger looked around as she came through the door to the Shadow training area wearing her new hard-suit. She didn't care for the fact that it was formfitting, but it was necessary in her line of work given that loose cloth could make noise or get caught on something. With her short brown hair, large green eyes, and petite form, Sara was a rather attractive woman in many ways, and her looks had been the cause for fending off more than a few young men in the streets of Paris and Monte Carlo. That was the real reason her father had taught her how to defend herself when she was young, but it looked good in her service jacket, also. The new uniform emphasized her slender figure, which made her a little uncomfortable given her history, and it was colored in the standard Division 2 black with "shades of grey" camouflage. Dagger found the long room populated with about seven other Shadows-in-training, most of them women. The doctor who'd overseen her augmentation had told her that Shadow-class implants seemed to work best with female physiology, which was why men were rare among the Shadows in N7. Her own augmentation had gone well, and she'd spent the whole first day of the training course recovering from it, but she was still a little sore from some of the implants "working themselves in", as the doctor put it. Dagger scanned the room and found it oddly devoid of an instructor, even though this was the time specified in the training schedule. She frowned as she set her helmet on and synced it with the suit systems.

"Invisibility." The voice came from above them, but no one could see who was speaking, "It's something that man has sought for many ages. Many in the past have tried to harness it. All have failed. You will succeed." A man in a Shadow's hard-suit suddenly materialized in front of the group, removing his helmet to reveal his face, "Infiltrators today have no concept of what true invisibility really is. They've grown dependent on technology to conceal them, and it's made them weak by comparison. I'm Com. Samuel Kento, Shadow infiltration training instructor for this facility. I've studied the way of ninjitsu since I was a child. One of the many disciplines of the ninja is that of invisibility and stealth field craft. That is what you'll learn in this training course." He slowly drew the sword from his back, "You will also learn Shadow sword technique. It's a combination of ancient ninja fighting styles and modern marine hand-to-hand combat. I suggest you pay particularly close attention to that part of the course, because I designed it." The commander twirled the sword in his hand once before staking it into the floor next to him, "I'll be teaching you the way ninja are taught. In ninja training, you face a series of tests. No prior instruction; just tests. You will fail these tests the first several times you try them, and that's to be expected. Those failures are your instruction. Learn well what caused you to fail the test and fix it the next time you attempt it. It will be hard, but I guarantee it will teach you everything you need to know about being a Shadow. My methods may be unorthodox, but they're effective. Every class of Shadows that have graduated under my training have been some of the best infiltrators N7 has ever had. So, let's begin."

He pulled his sword out of the floor, twirling it once before sheathing it on his back and pointing to the rest of the long room behind him, "The first test you will face is the Test of Silence. You must learn to move swiftly and silently across any environment no matter how hard it may be to do so. In front of you is a hallway covered in crushed glass, eggshells, and peanut husks, all of which will crunch very loudly if stepped on, and there's no way around. Your goal is to get to the other end of the room silently. If I hear you at all, you will fail the test. Line up single file. You'll do this one at a time. Let's get started." The commander stepped aside and turned his back to the trainees, relying on his hearing to judge the test.

Dagger found herself third in line. The trainee in front of her walked up to where the course began and slowly, carefully took a step into the field of debris.

"You failed. I heard a crunch. Back of the line." The trainee cursed under her breath as she went back to the end of the line. Dagger's eyes widened behind her faceplate. She'd barely heard the crunch of the glass under foot. The instructor's hearing was very sharp and well-trained, meaning this test was going to be far from easy. The next trainee in line, the only man in the group, stepped forward and gingerly took a step into the noise field.

"You fail." The commander shook his head, "I heard you. Back of the line."

The trainee looked at him, "What do you mean? I barely heard anything."

Kento turned to face him, "And that's all that matters, I suppose? It doesn't matter how much of your own noise that you hear, but how much your enemy hears. Remember that in this line of work, discovery means death. Out in the field, even so much as a whisper from you could get a hostile's attention. He'll investigate your presence there, and if he finds you, you die. If you're lucky, you can fight your way out, but that rarely works. One of your best tools is silence, and you need to know how to use it or it could cost you your mission and your life." He nodded to the trainee, "You'll get another chance. Now get to the back of the line."

It was Dagger's turn. She stepped forward to the edge of the noise field and looked it over carefully. Her father had taught her how to move on what infiltrators call "loose terrain", any terrain with loose debris that would make noise, like gravel, but this was a whole different ball game. The floor was covered wall to wall in over a centimeter of crunchy, noisy debris, making it nearly impossible to take a step without making enough noise to wake the dead. Cautiously and carefully, Dagger stepped out onto the floor. Unconsciously to her, she pushed aside a bit of the debris with the side of her foot, giving her a clear step. She put her weight down, and was surprised to hear no crunch under it. She carefully took another step, this time not pushing aside the debris and making the quietest of crunches on a peanut husk.

"You fail. I heard you." The commander spoke up from behind Dagger as he turned to face her, "But you did well. You're the first to make it a full step into the hallway. That's a good start. Now just remember what you did to make that first step and duplicate it on your next turn."

Dagger looked at the instructor sheepishly, "But…I don't remember what I did."

He shrugged, "Than you'd best recall it quickly before your next turn. Back of the line." Dagger went to the back of the line and immediately started analyzing the room. There had to be a way to pass this test. As more trainees tried and failed and it came closer to her next turn, Dagger noticed that the ceiling supports along the wall might be within climbing height. She was good at free-running and climbing, and her augmentation might give her some extra jump height. When she was up again, rather than going to the noise field, Dagger headed to her right, going toward the wall. She didn't know if the approach was part of the test, so she moved as quietly as possible to make sure she passed. She ran to the wall and bounded up for several steps before jumping off and grabbing one of the supports. She pulled herself up and regained her balance in a crouch before jumping to the next support over, putting her over the noise field. Dagger jumped to the next support, putting her a couple of meters in over the field.

"I heard you." The commander turned around again, "That support creaked. But I commend you for thinking outside the box. I never said you had to stay on the floor to get to the other end of the room quietly. You've made it three and a half meters, which is farther than anyone so far. You're on the right track, but you still failed, so back of the line."

Dagger climbed back to clear floor before jumping down. Her augmentations gave her greater strength for climbing and mobility as well as an easy landing. She stood and shook her head on the way back to the end of the line.

"This is going to be a long two weeks."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The biotics had their own separate area of the training grounds. It wasn't because people were scared of them, but because of the particulars of N7 biotic training. They dealt with a lot of wide-scale attack abilities, unstable biotic fields, and the occasional dark energy explosion, meaning they were treated similarly to the demolitions trainees with a separate area further away from the rest. It was a combined course, with Furies and Slayers doing many of the exercises together. This was where the Division 2 biotics, Fang and Hammer, found themselves on the second day of training. The first day had been spent receiving their respective augmentations and recovering from them. This was where the rubber met the road.

As Fang followed Hammer out to the training field with a number of biotics, she noticed him looking at his arm.

"Are you all right?"

Hammer nodded, "Aye, I'm fine. It's just ever since I was augmented, my left elbow's been itchy. Not really sure why."

Fang shrugged, "I'm sure it will pass soon enough."

"I sure hope so. I can't scratch it through this new suit." He looked himself over again, "Speakin' of which, I might add, is freakin' awesome. It's got this scary 'I am your doom' sort of look to it. Don't you think?"

"It does look somewhat intimidating, yes." The hard-suit in question was the standard Slayer's uniform, formfitting carbon fiber armor with full interface with the wearer's implants for maximum mobility and strength. Fang's new hard-suit was similar, except with boots that had attached thigh guards and a hood that attached to the combat mask. Both suits were colored in the standard Division 2 black with grey camo. Out on the training field, there were several other Furies and Slayers waiting for the instructor to arrive. They didn't have to wait long before everyone noticed an asari in N7 armor carrying a sword approaching them.

"Good morning, recruits." She nodded respectfully to them all, "I'm Matriarch Karihna, your biotics training instructor. I've been a commando in the asari military since my early maiden years before N7 hired me to train biotics like yourselves. I've been using biotics since I was a child and I've been applying them in combat since well before your grandparents even met. I am considered an authority on the use of biotics in combat, so I would appreciate you paying attention to what I have to say. What took me centuries to learn, I'm going to teach you in two weeks." The matriarch started pacing in front of them, "The Furies among you are Adept-class soldiers, already proficient in the use of biotics in combat. You're going to be learning some advanced techniques that will make you far more dangerous. Likewise, the Slayers among you will be learning abilities that will improve a Vanguard-class biotic's already-high mobility."

Karihna stopped and faced the recruits, "Furies, by the end of this course, you will specialize in the use of unstable biotic fields. You will learn a skill known as the Dark Channel." She turned and waved her arm toward a target downrange, a purple glow pulsing from her upper body. There was a bright flash around the target which left it coursing with purple biotic energies. Fang could see from both her mask HUD and past experience that the energy was burning away the target rather rapidly.

"The Dark Channel is a variation of the Warp skill which slowly disintegrates the chosen target. Once all consumable matter on the target is gone, the effect then jumps to a nearby target. The effect continues jumping from target to target until either it wears out or there are no more targets of sufficient mass close enough to consume, at which point it simply dissipates. What makes the Dark Channel more dangerous, however, lies in the fact that it's an unstable field. As such, it can be activated by something as simple as a basic Throw to trigger…" She turned again and swung her arm, releasing a Throw at the same target. When it struck, the two biotic effects interacted in an explosion that fried everything in a two meter radius and blasted the target into a dozen pieces.

"…A dark energy detonation, endearingly known as a 'biotic explosion'. Fresh consumable mass refreshes the Dark Channel effect every time it jumps, so it's primed to blow each time. You can also do that with the other skill I'm going to teach you." Karihna waved her arm again, this time a flash of biotic energy pulsing from around her. With it came withes of dark biotic energy in the air.

She continued, "This is called an Annihilation Field. Asari Valkyries use it regularly. It's similar to the Dark Channel, however it focuses around yourself and afflicts anything that comes within reach. Once the field affects them, the target is slowly disintegrated by the energy. But, once again, the true potential lies in the field's instability. Once a target is affected, it's primed for a biotic explosion. Keep in mind that the Annihilation Field affects anything that comes within range, so I'll be teaching you how to allow your squad mates into proximity without them getting hit." The matriarch took a step closer to the recruits, everyone noting how the field around her seemed to morph around everyone it came into contact with.

"You'll learn to control it well enough." She stepped back before dispelling the field and drawing the sword she was carrying, "For you Slayers, you'll be trained how to handle your blade, but it's my job to teach you something you won't learn from the ninjas. You're already familiar with the Shockwave skill that most biotics can use. What you probably don't know is that if you focus the Shockwave energy around an object first before releasing it, it will strike with more force and impact." Karihna turned in an acrobatic twirl, whipping the blade through the air around her as her body surged with biotic energies. She then snapped the blade forward in a strong slash that caused the energy to cascade forward in a deadly display. Half of the recruits looked on in awe at the demonstration.

She sheathed the sword again, "The Biotic Slash. Only Slayers can pull it off unless you Furies get your hands on a sword. The final skill I'll be teaching you is considered the pinnacle of biotic control. The ability to reduce one's own mass sufficiently to make micro-jumps." Suddenly, Karihna vanished in a flash of purple biotic energy.

"Phasing." The recruits all turned around at hearing her behind them, "All advanced skills, all very difficult to learn and execute, however you will learn to execute them quickly and efficiently – as though it were second-nature to you – before the end of this training course. So let's get started."

Hammer rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at Fang, "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin' about all this?"

Fang nodded firmly, "It's going to be a long two weeks."


	3. Chapter 3

3

What seemed to be a long time passed quite quickly as the Division 2 team rose to the challenges of training. It was difficult for all of them at first, but as they became more and more familiar with the equipment and techniques they'd be using in the field, it started becoming second nature to them. They only saw each other in the barracks in the morning before training and in the evening afterward, and that was for a brief time since everyone was usually exhausted. And those weren't the times the trainers kept them out all night. N7 training was the kind of thing you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. It was designed to be as brutal as imaginable to condition soldiers and officers for the worst the battlefield has to offer, and the specialization retraining was even tougher than that. But that was why they selected their candidates as carefully as they did; the strong would survive, the weak would wash out.

The two weeks came to an end with the conclusion of the team's training and their official graduation into the ranks of the N7 elites. It would have had more pomp and circumstance with it, but luxuries had to be sacrificed in wartime. The very next day, Maj. Fitzgerald called everyone into the briefing room the prep for their first real mission. He arrived earlier than everyone else and waited on the far end of the room for the first of the team to show up. It wasn't long before the door slid open and Delta came through, carrying his helmet under his arm. His new armor was the N7 Paladin Inferno armor, a variant derived from an armor type Cerberus officers used to use, colored in the standard D2 black with grey camo.

The major nodded, "Commander. Looking good. How was training for you?"

The Sentinel took a seat in the middle, "Tougher than my ego will allow me to admit. But it was a good challenge." Perhaps "challenge" was too soft a word as Delta recalled exercises of having to duck down behind his omni-shield to avoid a hail of live gunfire that would have shredded him without it, as well as other exercises demonstrating the various uses of the shield and the armor's tech systems.

Zeus shrugged, "Well, you look none the worse for wear. Have you seen the rest of the team?"

Delta shook his head as he set his helmet under his seat, "I haven't seen them for the last two days. I'm sure they'll be here."

"Some may already be here." The voice came from a dark corner of the room. Delta called up a light on his omni-tool to illuminate the darkness, but no one was there. Both of them recognized the French-Monacan accent the voice spoke with.

Zeus looked around the room, "If you're here, Dagger, than why can't we see you." He turned around and startled when he found her standing right behind him.

Dagger removed her helmet and smiled, "That was the point, major." She walked around him and removed her sword from her back before taking a seat.

The major put a hand on his chest and took a deep breath to calm down before turning to face them, "So that's two of you. Now, we just need the rest." As if on cue, the door slid open to allow Tech to walk in the room, carrying her helmet in one hand and a satchel in the other. In her typical reserved manner, she simply stepped in and took a seat.

Zeus nodded to her, "Tech. How was training?"

She was quiet for a moment as she worked a grenade around in her hand before looking at him, "Most entertaining. I'm looking forward to blowing a few things up." As she finished, the door opened again and Hammer came through, gently twirling his sword in his hand as he took a seat. He pulled his helmet off and set it next to him before leaning his sword against the chair. A moment after, Fang also came in, her hood pushed back and her combat mask in hand as she took her seat.

Zeus nodded, "That's just about everybody. Anyone seen Sword?" As everyone was shaking their heads, they all noticed the approach of a subtle, rhythmic tremor of the floor that all had come to associate with the heavy step of an N7 Destroyer. The door opened as Sword came through, unlocking and removing his helmet as he stepped in.

Fang turned around in her seat to look at him, "Do you realize you shake the floor when you walk?"

He shrugged with a mischievous smirk, "I've put on some weight recently."

"I hope it's all muscle. Take a seat, lieutenant." Zeus picked up his datapad and looked at it, "Good to have the team back together. I hope training was good for all of you. According to your scores, it was a bit rough for you all at first, but you adapted very well after that. There are a couple of things I want to address first. Fang, you seem to have made quite an impact on your instructor. Matriarch Karihna was impressed with how quickly you learned the skills, particularly the phase evasion."

Fang shrugged, "I'd studied it a bit a few years ago. It was just learning how to put it into practice. And biotic instability was an emphasis in the BAAT program."

The major nodded to her, "Well, she gave you a high commendation for it. Good job." He turned to the other end of the room, "Hammer, you seemed to have impressed Emkay, too, but in the opposite direction. She has notes here about excessive, almost-psychotic levels of aggression in the Vanguard refresher course."

Hammer just shrugged, "That's just who I am, sir. I'm an aggressive man by nature. I don't try to hide it, and I picked a combat specialization that can put it to good use."

"Yeah, I'll agree with that last part. Your score in that exercise was off the charts. Emkay recommended psychological reevaluation and therapy, but I'll hold off on that as long as I have your word that it'll stay under control. Understood?"

Hammer nodded, "Aye. Yes, sir."

Zeus looked at his datapad again, "Lastly, Sword, Gen. Arterius made a note here about you. It says you're an excellent soldier – high praise coming from a turian – but you have what he calls 'heroic tendencies', coming to the assistance of a squad mate at high risk to yourself."

Sword gave an understanding nod, "That's come up several times in my file, sir."

"Well, I'm not going to discourage you from helping squad mates in the slightest. Just keep in mind that that mission always takes priority as long as the cost isn't too high. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The major put the datapad aside, "There are a few other minor notations here, but they can wait. You all passed your specialization training with high marks, which was a challenge unto itself. From here on out, the missions you're going to be on are going to be a challenge unlike any you've ever faced before. And I'm pleased to inform you that you already have your first mission." He picked up his datapad again, "Before we get to that, I need to sort out a little more organization now that you've completed training. You're a team of six, and you're going to be sub-divided into pairs for sake of organization; 'fire-teams' for lack of a better term. Fire-team 1 is the assault pair, which will consist of Delta and Sword. Sword has the heavy firepower, and Delta provides heavy defense." The pair referenced both nodded in return, "Fire-team 2 is the ordnance pair, and will consist of Fang and Tech. Between a Demolisher's explosives and a Fury's biotic detonations, there's enough destructive potential there to crack a planet in half." Fang nodded and Tech chuckled at the comment, "Finally, fire-team 3 is the CQB pair, and will consist of the only two left, Dagger and Hammer. A combination of stealth and close-range biotic power with a couple of swords thrown in; I don't think I need to explain further. The person you are paired up with is going to be your partner for the foreseeable future. Hope you like them, because you're stuck with them."

Zeus pressed a button on his datapad which brought the hologram table to his right to life, showing the image of a planet with moons, "Now for your first mission. The turians are still giving the Reapers what-for holding Palaven, even more so now that their new Primarch is secured away from the battle zone. You're going to be inserted into enemy-held territory on Menae, this zone in particular." The holo zoomed in on a small area on the moon, "Turian Blackwatch set up a series of four comms routers in this AO to funnel high-security communications. Unfortunately, the birds had to give up this AO in a hurry, and the routers were left behind. The zone is now under Reaper control and the routers are at risk of being compromised. Your mission is to recover those routers so they can be redeployed in a secure location. There is a heavy enemy presence on the ground; you're going to be up against a small army. The encrypted homing signal for each router will be uploaded to your omni-tools upon arrival. Any questions?"

Delta analyzed the hologram of the AO for a moment before speaking, "Get in, get the routers, get out?"

The major nodded lightly, "Simple except for the legion of Reaper troops you'll be up against."

Delta returned the nod, "We'll get it done."

"The _S.S.V. Bunker Hill_ is upstairs waiting for us. She's a Normandy-class stealth frigate. They'll get us in and out without much trouble. Gear up and saddle up. We're wheels up in thirty." With that said, the major grabbed his datapad and a duffel bag and headed out of the room.

Delta stood and grabbed his things, "You heard the man. Get what you need and report to the shuttle pads. I want everyone ready to go in twenty minutes. Move out." The team all left the room, on their way to their first mission under Division 2. Unfortunately for them, they had no idea what was in store for them.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The _Bunker Hill_ sped through the stars at the fastest FTL speeds she could muster. Unlike the other two Normandy-class frigates that had been built since the _S.S.V Normandy_'s maiden voyage, the _Bunker Hill_ was built to the redesigned specs of the _Normandy S.R.2_. She was just as fast and stealthy as the original.

Within the hull, a much more severe mood hung over the ship's briefing room. All the members of the D2 team were assembled for debriefing after their first mission, an incursion into enemy-held territory. Unfortunately, it hadn't gone as expected. Zeus came into the room, the glass door closing behind him, looking at his datapad, and took a seat at the far end of the table. As he looked around at his team, everyone seemed to avoid his gaze, as though they were ashamed of what had happened.

Zeus stood and started a slow circle around the room, "After reviewing the after-action report, I have only one question for everyone." He stopped and slapped his hands on the table, "What the heck happened down there?"

Sword was about to reply before Delta cut him off, "Things didn't go according to plan, sir. As commanding field officer, I take responsibility."

"I'm not here to point fingers. But I do want to know what went wrong." The major looked at each member of the team, "Would someone care to elaborate?"

Delta leaned forward, folding his hands on the table in front of him, "We prepped for insertion; you were there…"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The shuttle debarked the _Bunker Hill_'s bay and immediately sped for the moon's surface. All around them, the turian fleets engaged the Reapers that hovered ominously over their homeworld. The turians had all they could do just to hold the moon, much less take back Palaven at the moment. Hopefully, D2's mission here would be a step in the right direction.

The major glanced back as his hands worked over the shuttle controls, "Two minutes to insertion point. I'm uploading the encrypted homing signals for the comms routers now. The Reapers are jamming long-range signals in this AO, so I'll be radio-silent until you're done. Remember, your mission is to get in, get those comms routers, and get out. Assist turian forces if possible, but everything else is secondary. Send the evac burst signal once you have all four routers and I'll designate an LZ to pick you up."

Sword locked his helmet before checking his Typhoon, "Snatch and grab. Not my favorite, but it'll do for a first run." He looked at Delta, "We have a plan, boss?"

The commander nodded as he secured his helmet seals, "We do. I'll tell you when we land." He looked his own weapon over. Everyone on the D2 team except for Sword and Dagger had been issued heavily upgraded M-7 Lancer assault rifles, some modded for larger clips while others were set up for armor and cover piercing. The Lancer didn't use thermal clips like standard weapons, relying on heat dispersion systems much like older guns but coupled with modern bullet calibers. The original had been recently redesigned by a master gunsmith before being donated to the Alliance military. The expensive tech behind the rifle's design kept it off the front lines, but made it perfect for spec-ops. Zeus' reason for using that rifle in particular was that it was powerful, accurate, and durable, but also freed the team from ammunition restraints in the quite likely event they would be cut off from supplies.

Fang locked her combat mask and collapsed her rifle before setting it on her back, "I think it would help if we knew the plan before hand, sir."

"Just trust me, Fang."

The major looked back at them, "Thirty seconds to drop. Get tactical, team." The passenger area came alive with the sound of rifles being rechecked and armor being secured as all six members of the team made ready for the insertion. The shuttle door opened and the automated door gun slid into position. It opened up on a nearby group of Cannibals, dropping them and their Marauder leader like a bad habit to clear a landing zone. The shuttle then quickly descended to within a meter of the ground.

Zeus turned around in his seat, "This is your stop, folks. Good hunting."

Delta jumped out and started waving everyone on, "Let's go! Move, move, move!" Everyone piled out as quickly as possible, the door gun periodically opening up a burst to keep them covered. Once everyone was clear, the shuttle rose into the air and sped away as the door closed. They took a defensive formation, everyone covering all angles to their position.

Delta looked back at everyone, "All right, team. Our objectives are spread across that area. Here's what we're doing. Sword, you're with me; we go for the first router. Dagger, you and Hammer go–" He stopped short and looked around. Hammer was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Hammer?"

Dagger shook her head, "I don't know. He was here a moment ago."

The commander cursed under his breath before opening a comm channel, "Hammer, do you copy?"

"_Aye. You got me_."

"Where the blazes are you, marine?"

"_Doin' what I do best. I'll keep them off balance until you guys can secure the objectives._"

Delta shook his head, "This isn't part of the plan, Hammer. Get back here on the double."

"_A little busy right now, commander. I'll report when I can._"

He cursed in German as he closed the channel, "Well, that shoots the plan in the butt and we haven't even started." He looked at Dagger, "Stick with the plan. Dagger, find some place that's high and has a good view. Establish overwatch for the area."

The team sniper looked back at him, "I won't have anyone to cover me."

"Tell that to your partner. Just do what you can." With Delta's order, Dagger turned and cloaked as she started heading toward a small structure not far away.

"Tech, we'll need a diversion to get out of here. Find something that will blow up nicely and wire it. Then you and Fang secure two of the routers."

"On it." The demo expert nodded firmly before standing and moving out with her partner.

Delta looked at Sword, "We're going for the first two routers. And we need to do as much damage to Reaper forces as possible on the way."

Sword slapped the clip on his weapon, "That part of the plan, sir?"

"Hammer shot the plan to bits when he took off like that. We're adlibbing now. We'll adapt and I'll slap him later. The first router is this way. Let's move." Delta took the lead with his taller partner aiming over his shoulder. They didn't encounter any resistance until they came near the first router location, when they happened on a group of Cannibals that looked like they were searching the area. The Marauder leading them immediately noticed the pair of N7 soldiers and ordered its troops to open fire. Delta and Sword hunkered down behind the cover of a large boulder, thoroughly pinned by the volume of fire.

Sword looked at Delta, "Any ideas, boss?"

Delta stood briefly to return fire, but didn't stay up long before his shields took hits, "We need to break their formation. Toss one of those multi-frags around the rock." Sword only nodded as his right gauntlet lit up, depositing a grenade into his hand. He quickly tossed it around their cover before it split and exploded a moment later, throwing the Cannibal line into disarray. The mauled corpse of a Cannibal flew over their cover and landed on Delta, and Sword kicked it off of him.

The commander brushed himself off before pointing over the rock, "I've got the Marauder. You go for the router. Go!" Sword nodded as he turned around his cover and ran full-tilt toward where the router was hidden. He shoulder-checked several Reaper troops as he ran through their formation, an experience akin to being hit by a freight train in the heavy Destroyer armor. Delta stood from his cover and immediately drained the shields of the commanding Marauder, staggering it effectively. He then leveled his rifle and unloaded a hail of armor-piercing rounds on it. The Marauder shuddered under the gunfire before falling to the ground and twitching.

Sword stopped where the homing signal was strongest, near several abandoned turian supply crates. He ripped the side off one of the crates to find the comms router at the bottom, and he quickly removed the backpack from his back to pop it open and put it in. Delta joined him as he finished off another Cannibal with an incinerator charge, Sword reseating the pack on his back.

The commander waved him on, "That's one. Let's get the other. Let's go!" More Cannibals began closing in from all around as they moved on to the next position. This was how the spec-ops worked these days. In asymmetric warfare like this, when massively outnumbered, you had to fight smart. Punch a hole, do the job, and get out before the hole closes. When it's six against a few hundred, they had to be skilled, seasoned, and just a little lucky.

Sword and Delta both slid to a stop against a fallen rock pillar. Delta checked the situation while Sword reloaded his Typhoon. They only had a few minutes at most before the Reaper troops on their tails caught up with them, so they would have to make their next move quickly.

Delta looked around for a moment before kneeling down and opening his comm, "Delta to Fang. What's your status?"

The signal came back a little garbled, "_We've got the first router, but we have heavy resistance getting to the second_." She was interrupted by the sound of an explosion over the line, "_We should have it soon, though._"

"Do what you can, but don't get pinned down. We'll get our second router and rendezvous with you. Delta out." He closed his comm and leaned around his cover, "Have any more of those multi-frags?"

Sword checked his launcher display, "A few."

Delta knelt down again and slapped his rifle to reload it, "We may need them all. The second router is heavily guarded. And we'll have that last bunch of Cannibals on our heels any minute." He pointed at the ground, "Leave one of those grenades here on a proximity setting; make a poor man's proximity mine. That'll slow down pursuit."

The lieutenant ejected a grenade, made an adjustment, and then tossed it a meter away, "What about what's ahead of us?"

"I'm not sure about that. Any ideas?"

Sword leaned over Delta's shoulder and examined the scene for a moment before pointing, "Those red barrels are full of oxy-trit fuel. One well-placed shot and it's instant crater."

Delta nodded quickly, "That should be a good starter. The router is far enough away. What about the rest?"

"You get the router." Sword's armor lit up with red activation holograms, "I'll handle them." He stood up, his shoulder launcher activating and firing a missile. The warhead whipped through the formation of Cannibals, striking the barrels and exploding brightly. The barrels erupted in a blast of fire and shockwave that sent Reaper soldiers flying in all directions. The prefab structure next to the blast lifted up on one end before falling back down, crushing a surviving Marauder and sinking down into the shallow crater that was left.

"Go!" Sword leveled his weapon and started laying down fire as Delta scrambled for the router. Sword's hail of gunfire, made all the more deadly by his Devastator Mode, started dropping Cannibals like a bad habit as he slowly played it across what was left of the formation. The last of them fell just as the firing barrels inside Sword's Typhoon clicked with empty chambers due to overheat. He popped the clip panel open and slapped the weapon's side to eject the burnt clip before closing it again. As he did, the grenade he'd left behind suddenly shot its fragments into the air before detonating, much like an old "bouncing Betty" landmine from the twentieth century, indicating that their pursuit had caught up with them. Delta found the router on the other side of the destroyed prefab, hidden behind a pile of rocks, and he took the backpack from his back to stash it as quickly as he could. Sword joined him as he quickly put the backpack back on.

The lieutenant took a knee as he laid down suppressive fire behind them and Delta opened his channel to the other team, "Delta to Fang. We have our second router. What's your status?"

"_We did exactly what you said not to. We have the second router, but we're pinned down and taking heavy fire about a hundred meters from your position._"

Delta frowned behind his faceplate, "Hold your position. We'll come to you." He switched channels, "Dagger, cover our movement to Team 2's position."

"_Negative, commander. I'm switching positions. I was compromised._"

The commander cursed in German under his breath, "Get a new position as fast as you can. We need your cover fire." He closed his comm and looked at Sword, "We have to move. Drop another grenade to slow them down and let's go." Sword followed the order, launching another multi-frag into the growing crowd of Cannibals he was shooting at before turning to follow Delta. They moved as fast as they could over the grey, rocky terrain, facing minimal resistance as they ran. Most of the Reaper troops were either behind them or pinning Team 2, so they were scarce between those two positions.

Team 1 crested a ridge to find Team 2 in a bad way. Fang and Tech were holed up in a turian prefab against a cliff wall with nearly fifty Cannibals and Marauders laying down suppressive fire on them. Occasionally, Tech would brave the fire to toss a grenade into the crowd and Fang would cast some biotic power, but all they were really doing was holding them back. Team 1 immediately opened fire into the mob of Reaper troops, lending what aid they could from where they were.

Delta fired an incinerator charge and looked at Sword, "Drop a grenade into that crowd. We need to thin that herd if we're going to get them out of there.

The lieutenant readied his launcher, "It's my last one."

"Then make it good, marine." Sword aimed his launcher over the middle of the crowd of Cannibals and fired off his last multi-frag. The explosive split into five parts before exploding just above their heads, making the charge an impromptu air-burst weapon. The chain of explosions decimated the Cannibals ranks, reducing them by at least half. Sword kicked in his missile launcher as he and Delta stood and started firing again. Fang and Tech saw the opportunity and joined in. Fang flashed out a Dark Channel into the crowd, following it up with a series of Throws to trigger biotic detonations that threw the Reaper troops into further disarray. To top it all off, Dagger had apparently found a new position, because a round from a modded Black Widow sniper rifle picked off three Cannibals in a line, followed quickly by the weapon's report.

As the team prepared for to mop up the last of their targets, the ground shook subtly with what felt like footsteps. Sword and Delta looked up the cliff wall to see to everyone's horror a massive Brute at the top. It snarled loudly, pounding its chest before jumping down. Fang and Tech saw it just in time to jump out of the prefab as the Brute came smashing down on top of it, crushing it in the middle like a soda can. That put Team 2 out in the open, no cover, and a Brute right on them.

"I got this!" Sword jumped over his cover and slid on his hip down the ridge in front of him. He hit the ground and started running toward the Brute.

Delta leaned over his cover, "What are you doing? Get back here, marine!"

Sword ignored the order as he collapsed his rifle and slapped it on his back. He held his left hand back in a fist, activating his armor's omni-tonfa. The Brute raised its large claw to crush Tech just as Sword came charging in to clock it in the face with his melee weapon. The strike disoriented it enough to change targets, and it turned its attention to him. It raised its claw and swung only for Sword to duck under it, and he counterattacked with a backhand to the face again. His T-5V armor gave him the best chance at taking the Brute toe-to-toe. His luck didn't quite hold out, though, as its smaller arm came around with a punch to the head that staggered him back. Sword deflected the next strike with his tonfa only for the claw to catch him in the chest, pinning him to the ground.

The Brute raised its other arm for the finishing blow when, a purple flash heralded the Brute flying off of Sword. Standing above him, Hammer had appeared out of nowhere to ram the Brute with a Biotic Charge. He then drew his sword from his back before vanishing in a phase-flash, reappearing to slash the Brute before vanishing again before it could counterattack. Hammer did that several times, slicing off pieces of the Brute's armor and crippling one of its legs, before reappearing next to Sword again.

He braced his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, "I'm done. He's all yours, mate." Sword got to his feet and ran to the wounded Brute, shoving its claw aside and grabbing its head with both hands. He braced one foot on its shoulder as he pulled as best he could, hearing his suit's actuators strain against the resistance. Finally, with one last strong tug, the Brute's head came free of its body, along with about a foot of its spinal cord. The creature fell back and twitched as it died. Sword tossed the head aside as he turned around to Hammer, who'd finally caught his breath.

Sword offered his hand, "Thanks for the save. I owe you one."

Hammer shook his hand, "Buy me a good hearty meal and we'll call it even."

"A meal? Not just a drink in the officer's lounge?"

The fellow lieutenant shook his head, "Who are you kiddin'? Biotics use metabolic energy to fuel our abilities. After the light show I just did to save your butt, I'm famished."

Delta slid down the slope and stormed up to the two of them, pointing at Sword first, "You pull another stunt like that and I'll have you grounded, marine! You nearly got yourself killed!"

Sword straightened up in respectfully, "Sir, I did what I had to in order to save some team members."

The commander ignored the remark as he turned to Hammer, "And don't even get me started on you! I should have you court-marshaled and demoted for what you did!"

"Perhaps we could point fingers later?" Fang got everyone's attention as she and Tech approached them, "We have what we came for, so let's send the evac signal and get out of here before more Reapers show up." Delta looked at her for a moment before nodding and punching in a code on his omni-tool.

He pointed to Sword and Hammer, "We'll have words about your actions back on the ship." He checked his rifle before looking at Tech, "Is the diversion in place?"

She nodded, "Yes, but it could be–"

"Get ready to blow it. We'll need to slow them down as much as possible." A waypoint marker appeared on everyone's heads-up displays a few dozen meters away, and Delta pointed toward it, "There. We have two minutes before Zeus gets here with the shuttle. Let's hole up and get ready." The whole team gathered at the waypoint, Dagger rejoining them from her sniper position along the way, taking cover and preparing for the inevitable wave of Reaper troops to come. The expected onslaught appeared as over a hundred Cannibals with Marauder leaders came storming over the ridge they'd just left.

Delta pointed to them, "Light them up! We have to hold for one more minute." The entire D2 team opened up with full-auto assault rifle fire in an effort to stem the tide. The first ranks of Cannibals dropped like flies, as did half the second rank before they slowed down and started taking cover. The Reaper forces started holing up and using suppressive fire to cover their advances, making it harder for the D2 team to keep them at bay.

"Keep firing!" The commander slapped his rifle's sink against his thigh as he took cover behind his omni-shield, "We have thirty seconds!" The fray was getting thicker. Both Dagger and Hammer had gone full melee to keep the strays that made it through the gunfire away from everyone else. Finally, the shuttle streaked overhead and started a circling descent over the LZ, the side door opening and the auto-gun prepping to cover their escape.

Delta pointed to the shuttle, "There's the shuttle! Tech, blow your charges!"

The engineer shook her head, "Sir, I think we're–"

"I said blow them, marine! That's an order!" Tech followed her given order and pressed a button on her omni-tool. A moment later, a massive explosion lit up less than fifty meters away, the shockwave throwing enemy forces into disarray and staggering the entire D2 team. The shuttle was hit by the blast and sagged in the air for a moment before resuming the landing.

Delta looked at Tech, "What the heck was that? It nearly killed us, too!"

Tech shook her head, "I was trying to tell you that we're too close. You wouldn't let me finish."

The shuttle hit the dirt and the turret opened up to cover their evac. The entire D2 team all piled in, the door closing behind the last of them as they dusted off and headed for the _Bunker Hill_.

Zeus looked back from the pilot seat, "That was a rocky exfil, guys. Let's hope the rest of the mission went better."

Delta pulled his helmet off and cursed in German under his breath. He knew first-hand that the mission had not gone better…

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"…We held the LZ until you arrived. That's when I gave the order to set off the charges, giving you some turbulence. You pulled us out of there and we called it done."

Zeus nodded slowly as he began circling the table again, "You're right about that. The problem is that the only thing keeping this mission from being labeled a SNAFU is that you accomplished the objective; you got the routers. That mission redefined the word 'sloppy' on a number of levels. You guys are N7, and not only that, you're the _best_ of N7. I expected more out of you, all of you. Now, I have to march into that comms room and hang my butt over the fire just to make sure this division doesn't get shut down after its maiden voyage." He came around to the end of the table and leaned his hands on it, "I went to great lengths to make sure that every candidate for this team was from Earth. I wanted all of you guys to have something in common to bind you together as a team. I wanted you all to have a fire in your eyes at remembering our homeworld, the one the Reapers took as their first step in this invasion, a homeworld that you all share." He pushed off from the table in a huff and started for the door, "I was hoping I could make a team out of you guys. Looks like all I got was six soldiers." The door closed behind him, leaving the D2 team alone with his remarks echoing around them.

They were all quiet for a long time before Sword broke the silence, "For what it's worth, commander, I apologize for not giving you a heads-up before taking on the Brute. I saw the situation and I acted."

Delta shook his head, "No. It's my fault; the whole mission. I'm commanding field officer for this team, but I can't even keep my squad on the same page."

Sword scowled at Hammer, "And if you hadn't gone running off at the outset, we would've had another gun on our side. Thanks for nothing, Irish."

The Vanguard pointed an accusing finger at Sword, "Now you hold on just a–"

"Oh, stop it! All of you!" Fang stood from her seat abruptly, silencing the impending argument, "We're all to blame here! Zeus was right. We're not a team; we're just six soldiers with matching hard-suits."

The commander nodded as Fang sat down again, "She's right. And pointing fingers around the table isn't going to fix the problem, either. We need to look at the mission, analyze it properly, and own up to our mistakes as we fix them."

Sword nodded slowly, "Well, for starters, sir, not knowing the plan you had in mind put us all off-kilter on the outset. If I could make a suggestion, I say that we have the plan laid out for everyone before the mission so we're all in the loop."

Delta nodded to him, "That would be my fault. I apologize. From now on, I'll explain the plan to everyone before the mission, and adding to the idea, I'll want all of us to discuss it first before we settle on something. That's a good start." He looked around the table, "Does anyone else have something?"

There was a quiet moment before Fang spoke up, "Sir, when we get back to the base, I believe it would help if we all participated in daily team-based training exercises to help us work together better."

"Excellent idea, Fang. I'll schedule that as soon as we get back. Anyone else?" There was another quiet moment before Delta turned his attention to Hammer, "Do you think you could stay with the rest of the squad for more than five seconds next time?"

Hammer shrugged off the question, "I did what I do best. And it saved you all a lot–"

"It put your partner at risk. Dagger needed someone to keep her covered while she provided overwatch. She had to move positions because you weren't there for her. I'm trying to be nice when I say this, but your actions, while saving the team some trouble, jeopardized the mission and put your partner at risk."

Hammer was quiet for a long moment before his gaze fell, "Guess I didn't think that all the way through." He looked at his partner across the table, "Sorry, Dagger. I don't do this whole 'partner' thing very well."

Dagger chuckled, "I noticed. We'll work on that."

Sword looked at Tech, "What happened with the exfil diversion? It nearly blew us up, too."

The team engineer shook her head, "Simple problem. My ordnance was too large and we were too close to it. I didn't know what we were getting into, so I grabbed the biggest explosive I could find in the armory. I'll kit up with something more appropriate in the future."

Delta nodded, "I'll make sure you're in the loop on that, Tech." He looked around the table, "Anyone else? These are good ideas."

The D2 team spent the next three hours in the ship's briefing room discussing their various behaviors and how they could improve their efficiency. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, owning up to character flaws that affected combat performance, looking for ways to work better as a team, and tempers flew high but brief on more than one occasion. But it was all for the better. They weren't just a team, they were a family. They were all each other had, and in combat, that meant life or death. And this was the way to make sure they all lived to fight another day.


	4. Chapter 4

4

A week went by before another opportunity for Division 2 to go on a mission. Truth be told, Zeus was rather loath to send them out again given the results of the last mission. He had to call in a favor with the director of N7 just to keep him from shutting down the whole division. But they were the best, and these missions demanded nothing less than the best. What he didn't know was that they'd been shoring up the weak points and learning how to work together better before testing themselves in combat again.

Zeus came into the briefing room and took his spot next to the projector on the far side of the room. He was expecting his "team" to come floating in one at a time like they did before. He waited for a long time, almost until the time the briefing was scheduled, when the door opened and, not one, but all of the D2 team came in and took their seats. The fact that they all came in at the same time instead of one at a time was a little unusual to him, but he shrugged it off for now.

He set his datapad aside, "Welcome back, guys. As much as I have reservations about doing so, you have another mission." He motioned to the projector, which was displaying an AO on a small planet, "Reaper forces have a mainframe on this planet, and Intel is pretty sure it's a high-security server. Command wants a rip of this server's network. We have practically no actionable intel in this AO, and this could be a goldmine. The problem is it's behind Reaper lines. The _Bunker Hill_ can get us in, but we can only put a small force on site. That means boots on the ground need to be the best. Your mission is to get in, upload as much data from this server as you can, and get out alive. You'll be facing heavy resistance and likely be under fire the whole time."

Delta leaned forward and folded his hands, "A deep-strike data raid." Zeus nodded, "Where is the exact AO?" The major called up the location of the server and the surrounding area. It was in a large destroyed building with piles of collapsed rubble and broken down walls. The server itself was at the top of a heap of debris with several remaining walls behind it.

"That's the target." Delta pointed to a small platform not far from it, "That's our infiltration point. The shuttle drops us here, we move to the server and set up shop while I hack into it." He pointed to a small ledge a few meters up and away, "Dagger, I want you here on overwatch. You should have a good view and we can keep you covered. The rest of us bunker down around the server and fortify."

Sword shook his head, "We're up against a small army here, sir. We'll need a diversion to take some of the heat off or we might get overrun."

"Good point." The commander nodded as he looked at the hologram before pointing to an area nearby, "Hammer, you like diversions. You and Fang will set up here, in this area with all these pillars. You'll have an advantage in that terrain. Draw their attention and turn that area into a meat grinder. Sword and Tech will cover me and Dagger is on overwatch." He pointed to a large wall nearby, "Tech, wire this wall to blow. That's our exfil. I'll let you know when I'm finished, Tech blows the wall, we all get out. Any thoughts?" No one raised a voice and Delta nodded, "Let's do it."

Having witnessed this whole planning process and finding it unusual, Zeus nodded, "We're wheels up in thirty. Grab your gear and get ready to roll." He grabbed his datapad and turned to leave the room but stopped briefly short of the door, "I hope I don't have to remind you that this may be your last chance as a division. I would strongly recommend not FUBARing this time." The doors closed behind him.

Delta stood up and nodded, "This is it, people. We've been preparing for this. Let's roll."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Back on the _Bunker Hill_, the D2 team gathered in the ship's briefing room, waiting for their commanding officer. He was taking longer than usual, and no one was really sure why. Finally, the glass door slid open and Zeus came in to take his seat, still looking at his datapad. He stayed quiet for a long moment, even scratching his head at one point. The major eventually put his datapad down and sat back in his seat.

"So…" Zeus rocked his seat back once, "Would anyone care to enlighten me as to what happened down there?"

Delta nodded as he leaned on the table, "You were getting ready to insert us…"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The _Bunker Hill_ came out of FTL and immediately dispatched the shuttle carrying the D2 team. They couldn't be behind enemy lines before they enemy found out they were there, so they couldn't waste any time. The team had to get in and out fast, and there was no room for error.

Zeus looked back from the cockpit, "We're two minutes out. Get tactical, people." Everyone checked and rechecked their hard-suits and weapons in preparation for the drop.

Delta sealed his helmet and looked around the compartment, "Is everyone clear on their role?" Everyone nodded in response, "Good. Let's make this happen, team." He held his fist into the middle of the compartment, "Division 2."

Everyone else joined their fists in the circle with him, "Dang few!" Dagger had come up with the little "cheer" after their first round of team training exercises as a means building a sort of team spirit among them.

Sword sat down and checked his Typhoon, "I'm looking forward to kicking some more Reaper butt."

Delta pointed at him, "Just no Brute wrestling matches this time, LT. Okay?"

The lieutenant shrugged, his armor clicking loudly with the motion, "I don't know, sir. Now that I have a taste for it, I can't make any promises."

"I wouldn't if I were you, Sword." Hammer spoke up from across the compartment as he sheathed his blade, "I'd hate to have to save your fanny a second time."

Fang rolled her eyes as she pulled up her hood, "Boys and their bragging matches."

"I know. Right?" Dagger chuckled, "We can't have a good conversation anymore without them trying to out-boast each other."

"Thirty seconds out." The major called back from the cockpit, "There's no jamming in this area, so I should be able to be your eye in the sky. I'll call out enemy formations as I see them and assist when able. Opening side door." He touched a control that opened the port-side hatch and swung the auto-gun into position. There was no resistance in the immediate area, but the gun scanned around looking for targets as the shuttle descended. Once within a meter of the ground, the team piled out of the shuttle with Delta in the lead before it ascended into the air again.

Delta looked around at the team, "You know what to do. Let's hit it!" As planned, Fang and Hammer headed for where they were going to make the diversion while Dagger disappeared to go to her sniper perch. The rest, Delta, Sword, and Tech, all headed to where the server was. They moved with no resistance, quietly covering all their angles and trying to maximize their stealth advantage while they still had it. Delta rounded a destroyed wall before quickly pushing up against it, snapping his fist up as a signal to halt and fall in. The other two stacked up behind him against the wall as the commander leaned around to check.

Sword checked their six briefly, "What do we have, boss?"

"A whole squad of Cannibals with a Marauder leading. They're guarding the server."

His comm channel came up, "_Dagger to Delta. I'm in position with eyes on target. It looks like the neighbors are home._"

"_This is Hammer. Fang and I are in position. Ready to start the meat grinder, sir._"

Delta nodded slowly, "Copy, Hammer. Stand by." He looked back at his team, "One arc, follow one multi-frag, on my signal. Copy?" Both Sword and Tech nodded as they each readied their respective explosives. Delta turned toward the target and held his open hand up for a brief moment before quickly closing it. On the signal, Tech leaned around the wall to toss her arc grenade, quickly followed by Sword standing to launch a multi-frag. The arc hit first, dropping the Marauder's shields and paralyzing half of the Cannibals with electric lightning. The frag hit just a moment after, its five parts exploding across the formation and decimating the squad. There were only a few left after that, which were quickly dealt with by three rapid sniper shots from Dagger's position.

"Move!" Delta jabbed his hand toward the server and his team dashed over to set up defensive positions around it. The server was a mainframe of very obvious Reaper design with the grey organic-like metal. One of numerous modifications to the D2 team's hard-suits was a system called "counter-harmonics shielding", an experimental device that countered and canceled the indoctrination signal that most Reaper devices emitted, both outside and inside the brain. The team could spend as much time as they needed to around this server without suffering any of the loyalty-altering effects the Reapers were so good at. The only reason these devices weren't in front-line use was because they were experimental and obscenely expensive.

Delta collapsed and stowed his weapon as he knelt down next to the Reaper server, calling up his omni-tool, "They're going to be on us soon. I'll work as fast as I can. Sword, you're op-com until I'm done." Unofficially, Sword was second-in-command of the team solely on account that he had more combat experience than everyone else except Delta. For this mission, Delta was putting him in operational command for the duration of the hack, leaving the Sentinel free of disturbances that could slow him down.

The lieutenant nodded in response, "Copy that, sir." He opened his channel, "Hammer, Fang, you have green light. Get their attention and start up the grinder."

"_Copy that. We'll thin them out for you._" Hammer's response was quickly followed by a large blast of purple energy from their direction, no doubt one of them triggering an unstable biotic field to act as a flare. Out in the distance, a cry of numerous Reaper troops could be heard echoing through the ruins as they became aware of the intruders. Delta started working fast on his omni-tool while Sword knelt down behind a fallen support beam for cover. Tech left briefly to go set the charges on the wall they would be exiting out of. Over toward the "Hall of Pillars" as they were calling it, everyone started hearing the snarls and screams associated with Cannibals dying in droves. Sword checked his clip once as Tech returned from rigging the wall, hunkering down across the way from him.

The comm channel popped again with Hammer's voice, "_Sword, they're startin' to slip past us! You've got incoming!_"

Sword nodded, "Copy that. Thanks for the heads up." He and Tech turned to look over their cover and brace for their inbound foes. After a moment, several Cannibals started coming up the ridge, opening fire on sight. Combined fire from Sword and Tech dropped them quickly while Dagger worked on thinning out the back ranks. So far, it was nothing they couldn't handle.

Sword finished off a Cannibal before looking over his shoulder, "How're we doing, boss?"

Delta didn't take his eyes off his omni-tool console, "I'm still working on it. They have a bugger of a firewall. I need more time."

"_Team, this is Zeus. You have a large wave of Reaper forces incoming. I'll try to thin some of them out for you, but you're about to get hammered hard._"

Sword nodded, "Copy that. We'll hold them." He looked back at Delta, "How much longer do you think you need, boss?"

"Hacking browser says ten minutes. I'll do it in five."

"Copy." He opened his team channel, "Five minutes, people. Let's hold them."

"_Sword, it's Zeus. I just saw something in the Reaper forces on my last pass. I can't get a fix on it, but it looks dangerous._"

"_Dagger here. I copy, Zeus. I can see it, but can't make it out from this distance. Recommend we brace for a hard target._"

Delta pressed several buttons before nodding firmly, "I'm in. Give me two minutes to rip the network."

Sword nodded in return as he reloaded, "Copy that. Tech, get ready to open our exit. Dagger, get down here and set up a new sniping perch. Hammer, Fang, get ready to regroup."

Down in the "Hall of Pillars", it was more like "Slaughterhouse of Pillars" as Fang and Hammer used the close-quarters to thin out the Cannibals. Hammer would charge one Cannibal and slice another six ways before vanishing again behind a pillar. Fang kept her Annihilation Field at full range, afflicting Cannibals and priming them to be blasted, which she was more than willing to facilitate as she also phased in and out of the fight. The two found themselves both taking cover against the same pillar as several Cannibals laid down heavy fire in a vain effort to hit them.

Fang leaned over to Hammer, "Sword says be ready to regroup. Delta's almost done."

The Vanguard jerked away from the edge as gunfire struck the pillar, "Good. I'm startin' to run out of steam." He cooled his weapon just as an ear-piercing shriek filled the halls. Hammer grabbed his helmet in an effort to cover his ears while Fang looked around for the source.

Hammer shook his head, "What the bloody heck was that?"

"Banshee." Though her face was covered, Fang's wide eyes could be heard in her voice. She opened her comm, "Sword, we have a Banshee incoming!"

"A little more than incomin', lass." Hammer tapped her arm and pointed down the row of pillars where the Banshee had just come into view. It stepped around a pillar, tendrils of biotic energy surging around it, and leaned forward to shriek at them. It then phase-jumped forward by several meters, closing the distance very uncomfortably.

Hammer pushed Fang to her feet, "Go! Go! We're buggin' out now!" Fang ran to regroup with the rest of the team as the Banshee jumped forward again to within arm's reach and raised its claws to strike down at Hammer. As it swung, he phased around behind it, taking a swing with his sword only for it to bounce off the Banshee's barrier. It turned around with another claw strike and Hammer phased again, reappearing behind it again and a few meters away to get some headway in escaping from it. The Banshee turned around and swung its clawed hand through the air, releasing a pulse of destructive biotic energy. Hammer twirled his sword around in his hand before snapping it out forward, releasing a Biotic Slash that intercepted the pulse and dispersed it before continuing on and hitting the Banshee. It raised its arm to shield itself before throwing another pulse, this one intercepted by a strong Throw from Fang further up the ridge.

Hammer waved her on, "Go! Let's go! We're outgunned! Move it!" They both turned and high-tailed it back to the rest of the team, the Banshee's screams following them. Delta was finishing up and unplugging from the server as the two biotics joined them.

He knelt down next to Sword and leaned around to look at Hammer, "The Banshee?"

The Vanguard shook his head, "I think we just pissed her off."

Delta nodded and looked to the rest of the team, "Hard target formation. Let's kill this witch." The D2 team spread out in preparation to take on the Banshee. Sword stood in the open to draw fire while Delta and Tech both flanked him from cover, and Fang, Hammer, and Dagger formed a line a few meters behind them. They all braced for their target's inevitable arrival. A piercing shriek preceded the Banshee phase-jumping into view.

Delta pointed at it, "Now!" Fang's body surged with purple energy as she hit the Banshee with her Dark Channel. Hammer and Dagger both twirled their swords through the air in an acrobatic display as they quickly followed up with a Biotic Slash and Electric Slash respectively. The biotic fields combining triggered a dark energy explosion that dropped the Banshee's barrier hard, and the Electric Slash left its skin surging with electricity. Sword opened up full-auto from his Typhoon while Tech fired a homing grenade. Delta timed his incinerator charge to hit at the same time as the grenade, the two explosives interacting with the residual electricity to trigger a pyrotechnic reaction, affectionately known on the battlefield as a "fire explosion". The Banshee's skin erupted in a blast of flame that knocked it back and vaporized parts of its body. Sword played his gunfire up and down the Banshee's body, targeting the scorched spots to maximize damage. Finally, the abomination took a hit that caused it to fall to its knees, but it kept coming as it tried to crawl forward. The team could see that it was dying from the swirls of uncontrolled biotic energy that were starting to form around it. Sword brazenly walked up to stand in front of the Banshee, and it looked up to scream at him weakly.

"Sorry, lady." He aimed at its face, "You're not my type." Sword fired point-blank, coring its head like an apple. The dead Banshee fell to the ground as its biotic energies began destroying its own molecular structure, slowly reducing it to a pile of ash. The rest of the team cheered at the kill. Hammer pumped his fist and yelled something in another language.

Dagger looked at him curiously, "What was that you said?"

He chuckled in return, "Gaelic for 'Get some!'."

Delta slapped Hammer's shoulder as he walked by, "Good job, team. I've sent the evac signal. Let's get out of here."

"_Team, this is Zeus. Evac signal confirmed, but the best place to pick you up is swarming with Cannibals. They're just through that wall near you._"

The commander smiled behind his faceplate, "It's a good thing we prepared for that." He looked at Tech, "Would you care to knock for us?"

Though she didn't say anything, everyone knew Tech well enough to know that she was smiling at the thought of blasting the skippy out of bunch of Reaper troops. Everyone knelt down and shielded themselves as she called up her omni-tool and touched a control, shortly followed by a deafening blast that annihilated the wall. The kicker charge threw all the debris outward, killing and burying nearly a dozen Cannibals in the process. The entire team came through shooting, Sword leading the way to draw fire while everyone else laid down fire to clear the way. The big marine's shields caved under the barrage, and his armor took several hits that knocked him off his feet. Delta ran in front of him and planted his omni-shield to give some cover while Fang and Dagger helped Sword back up and covered him as his shields regenerated. Once the team bullet-sponge was good to go, they resumed moving to the waypoint. They focused their fire to knock off Cannibals and Marauders as they took up a position and waited for the shuttle to arrive. Delta activated his cryo gauntlets and snap-froze a Marauder in his tracks, quickly followed by an Electric Slash from Dagger that explosively shattered the frozen creature with the flying shards impaling several nearby Cannibals. Several Cannibals charged their position, their advance rudely halted by Sword raising his foot and stomping down as hard as his armor could. The shockwave through the ground shook them off their feet, leaving them vulnerable to being quickly dispatched with a bullet to the face each. The shuttle descended quickly, the door gun opening fire to cover them.

Zeus looked back from the pilot seat, "They're moving Ravagers into position! We have to move! Let's go!" The D2 team piled into the shuttle as quickly as they could, Delta's feet barely having left the ground as Zeus punched the throttle and sped away. Reaper bullets pinged off the armor as the door closed, and several Ravager shots missed wide or low as the major weaved an evasive escape.

He looked back at the team, "Debrief is twenty after we land, guys." Hammer and Sword took off their helmets and did a fist bump in celebration of a successful mission. Everyone knew this was going to be a much better debrief than last time…

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"…We held our position until you got there. After extraction, we were done."

Zeus just sat in his seat, his eyes looking down at his datapad, before he nodded, "I know what happened during the mission. I saw the whole thing from the shuttle. But I still want to know what happened down there." He leaned forward in his seat, "I want to know what happened to you guys. You've made a complete one hundred and eighty degree turnaround from the last mission. The last mission, you guys didn't know up from down and barely pulled it off. This mission was quick, clean, and precise."

He stood and started slowly walking around the table, "You guys not only netted a goldmine of actionable intel from their network, but you wiped out over two hundred Reaper troops, including a Banshee, all without any casualties at all. You all worked together like a well-oiled killing machine. What happened to you?"

Delta looked at his team on either side of him, "We're not just six soldiers, sir. We're a team. We work together, and if there's a problem with our performance, we fix it. I guess it just took us a little time to figure it out."

Zeus smiled as he stood, "Well, however you did it, I'm glad you did. It'll be nice to give the director some good news this time. Good job, everyone. Dismissed." He turned and left the briefing room. Everyone was quiet for a long moment, but they could all feel the excitement in the room. Finally, everyone started talking all at once, recounting their favorite parts of the mission they'd just completed. The cacophony remained for over a minute before everyone quieted down enough for one person to be heard over the other.

Sword pushed his chair back and kicked his feet up on the table, "I don't care if it's buried under a dozen layers of 'classified'. I am so getting a recording of that mission. That was epic!"

Fang leaned on the table, "I've heard of units twice our size taking down a Banshee in twice the time. We took that witch apart."

Delta stood up from his seat, "We all did a great job, team. That mission was proof that, when we work together the right way, we can do a lot of damage. We proved that to ourselves, and to Zeus. We showed everyone that Division 2 isn't just a bunch of soldiers with matching hard-suits, but that we're a team. We're a team, and when we put our minds to it, there's no mission we can't pull off." He put his fist in the middle, "Division 2."

Everyone else stood and put their fists in the circle, "Dang few!"

Delta was right. This team was the best of the best, and there was nothing they couldn't do when they put their minds to it and worked together. As they celebrated their recent victory, none of them knew what lay ahead for their little family. None could foresee that they would soon be pushed to their limits as soldiers and as a team, and maybe beyond.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Celebration of a successful mission didn't last very long once the team returned to their base of operations. Once back, they resumed their daily training and practice, pushing their limits as individuals and as a team. They knew they were the best, and they knew they needed to keep the edge of the blade razor sharp if they wanted to stay that way. They all contributed in coming up with exercises that would test their abilities and improve cross-training more and more. That had become one of the D2 team's tenets for success: "Lose? Train hard. Win? Train harder." The next several days were filled with drills and maneuvers to keep the team sharp in light of their recent victory.

The call came right after one of their last exercises. The team hadn't even had time to gear down before they were called into the briefing room for an emergency session. They all came into the room, still wearing their full combat gear, to find the major waiting for them. They all took their seats, each team member wondering what had happened that it warranted an emergency briefing like this.

Zeus nodded to them, "Thank you for responding so quickly on short notice. We have an emergency situation that requires a careful hand. I want you guys to know from the outset that the director of N7 personally requested you for this mission. Apparently, he noticed your last run." The holo-projector next to him brought up a small planet, "A transport job to move an experimental power source from an Alliance high-security science facility went south less than an hour ago. The power source is in the open and we need to recover it ASAP."

Sword interjected by raising his hand, "With respect, sir, why us? Why not send a spec-ops team? It'd be easier."

The major shook his head, "Spec-ops SNAFUed to begin with. The team that got wasted were all N6. Naturally, that ups the ante to higher-tier assets, putting the ball in N7's court, and the director wants you on it."

Tech raised her hand next, "Why is this power source so important that we need to recover it so urgently?"

"This power source is highly experimental. We're talking breakthroughs in zero-point energy; a high-output infinitely-renewable energy source. This device is the only prototype in existence. I don't think I need to elaborate further."

Delta nodded firmly, "We get it. Sensitive mission, high risk, small window, no room for mistakes. Where's the target?"

"The target is here, a small destroyed spaceport near the front lines." The hologram of the planet next to him zoomed in on a small area, "The Alliance had a high-security science facility here. When the Reaper front pushed over this planet, we abandoned the facility, but the device was left behind when the transport convoy was hit by enemy forces. The device is in the open and unsecured, meaning we need to grab it as quickly as possible. You'll be up against geth this time, and they'll be there in force."

Fang's brow furrowed curiously, "Wait a minute. Geth? I thought they were allies now; clients with the quarians and all that. Why would they be attacking?"

The major shook his head again, "Relax, lieutenant. These are basically just geth platforms running redundant copies of Reaper code. The real geth are on our side, but these Reaper forces will have all the capabilities of a geth strike force." He looked at Delta, "Commander?"

Delta stood and approached the hologram, enlarging it for everyone to see, "All right. Insertion point is here, at this intact landing pad. The device is here, about five hundred meters from DZ. Hammer, Dagger, you two have the best mobility of the lot of us. You move ahead and secure the device. Once you have it, conceal yourselves somewhere and wait for the rest of us. We'll be moving from the insertion point and securing the area. Once we get to you, you join us and we'll evac the area. Any thoughts?"

Everyone was quiet for a long moment before Sword shook his head, "Seems pretty clean-cut, sir. Don't see much going wrong on this."

Zeus nodded firmly, "We're wheels up five minutes ago, people. Get what gear you need and report to the shuttle pads ASAP." He grabbed his datapad and left the room.

Sword nodded at the hologram before looking at Delta, "What do you think, boss? Another notch on the belt?"

The commander nodded, "Looks like a quick snatch and grab. As long as we do it right and do it together, it should be an easy win."

"I don't know." Fang shook her head slowly, "It's a little too clean-cut if you ask me. I've got a bad feeling about this, commander."

Hammer huffed as he stood from his chair, "Well, let's see if we can't beat your bad feeling to the punch then."

Fang shrugged as she pulled her hood up, "I suppose. I'm probably just being paranoid, but the sooner we get this done, the sooner it'll put my mind at ease."

"Then let's do it and do it good." Delta put his fist in the middle, "Division 2!"

"Dang few!" The team joined him in their cheer once before leaving the room to grab the gear they would need for the mission. As they departed, none of them knew just what lay ahead of them. They never knew how this "easy" mission would push them to and beyond their limits.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Major Fitzgerald stepped off the lift into the _Bunker Hill_'s shuttle bay as the doors at the far end opened, the vacuum of space being kept at bay by the evo-shield. Normally, he was the D2 team's shuttle pilot, but he had to be present on the ship because of a performance review by the _Bunker Hill_'s captain. Thus, he'd left the team in the hands of one of the marine pilots. The mission had just finished a few minutes ago and the team was on their way back up. He hadn't been in contact with them for the duration of the operation because the geth were jamming all signals in the area, and he was eager to hear how the mission had gone.

The first red flag went up when a medical team brushed past the major from behind him, taking up a position with a gurney near where the shuttle would be setting down. The second red flag was when the shuttle came flying into the bay almost recklessly fast, setting down in a very hurried manner. The major started toward the shuttle as the doors opened and the team came out. They quickly put someone on the med-gurney before they rushed out fast, heading for the lift. Zeus could see as they went by that it was Dagger on the gurney. Hammer, Fang, and Tech all accompanied her and the medical team as the lift door closed behind them. Zeus looked at who was left, Delta and Sword, with a bewildered look on his face. Sword looked at the major briefly before turning to head to the lockers, and Zeus could see there was quite a bit of blood on his armor.

Zeus pointed after him, "Is he hurt?"

Delta shook his head, "It's Dagger's."

The major looked into the shuttle briefly, "Did you get the device?"

"We lost it."

"Lost it?" Zeus nearly dropped his datapad in shock, "What happened, commander?"

Delta removed his helmet as they started walking toward the lift, "The mission started easy enough…"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The shuttle shot through the atmosphere at supersonic velocities carrying the Division 2 team to their next destination. The UT-47a Kodiak was stealthy and armed in case they needed some on-scene fire support. The team on board was just as well armed, and they were ready for another fight.

The pilot looked back from the cockpit, "We're coming up on the drop zone. ETA: five minutes. By the way, I just want you all to know that it's an honor to work with you. You're kind of becoming a legend in N7. Your last mission was awesome."

Sword locked his helmet before checking his weapon, "Just doing what needs to be done, marine. Let us know when we're thirty seconds out."

"You got it, sir." The pilot gave a thumbs-up in response.

Delta secured his helmet before looking around the cabin, "Is everyone clear on the plan?" No one raised any questions.

Fang pulled her hood up as she spoke up from across the shuttle, "I don't know, commander. I still have a really bad feeling about this mission."

"I thought we were supposed to leave those back home." Hammer sheathed his sword before checking his assault rifle, "The memo said 'no bad feelings permitted on missions'."

"I'm serious, Hammer." Fang shook her head before securing her combat mask, "The last time I had a feeling like this–"

The Vanguard chuckled, "Let me guess: your entire squad was killed in action."

"My entire squad and my best friend. It's no laughing matter, Hammer."

The Irishman's eyes widened behind his faceplate, "Yikes. Remind me to keep my gob shut from now on."

"That's enough, you two." Delta stepped closer, holding a handrail above him amid the shuttle's turbulence, "In all seriousness, Fang, do you think we should abort?"

She shook her head, "No, sir. I'm probably just overreacting."

The commander nodded, "All right. Let's consider the 'bad feeling' issue settled, then."

"Thirty seconds out. Beginning descent."

Delta looked around the cabin, "Get tactical, team!" The cabin came alive with the sound of rifles and armor clicking with brief checks and rechecks, "Let's get in, do our job, and be home in time for supper." He put his fist into the center, "Division 2."

The rest of the team's fists joined his, "Dang few!"

The pilot looked back, "LZ's hot. We're taking fire. Opening side door." The door opened and the door gun swung into position. There was a squad of geth on the ground where they wanted to set down and they were firing on the shuttle. The auto-gun opened up on them, dropping a few before the rest took cover and kept firing. The biggest difference in fighting geth versus fighting Reapers was that Reaper troops used an overwhelming force approach while geth were a lot less aggressive but far more precise.

Delta tapped Sword's shoulder, "Help him out." The marine nodded in return as he took up position on the other side of the door, bracing his Typhoon against the frame before unleashing a few bursts on the geth down below. Between the door gun and Sword's support fire, several more geth were taken down, causing what was left of the squad to fall back and retreat. That cleared the LZ for the shuttle to descend and make the drop.

The commander hopped out and waved everyone out, "Let's go, go, go!" The rest of the team piled out of the shuttle and the German commander banged on the side twice to signal the pilot to dust off.

He pointed toward their objective, "Hammer, Dagger, go!"

Hammer nodded, "Consider us gone!" He vanished in a flash of purple as he Charged a geth trooper a few dozen meters away, sending the synthetic flying. Dagger vanished into thin air, reappearing a moment later behind another geth further away, cutting the mech down with her sword in one stroke and demonstrating how fast she could move. The two regrouped and headed as fast as they could toward where the power source was. The pair moved a distance of nearly four hundred meters from the drop point, covering as much distance as they could while inflicting damage on the enemy. They rounded a bend of debris and came onto a line of destroyed vehicles, a convoy that the geth had hit.

"Wait!" Dagger stopped suddenly as she looked at her omni-tool, "The homing signal is getting stronger." She swept her tool over the area before pointing, "That one. That's where the signal is strongest." The approached the destroyed vehicle and Hammer held his hand over the hatch, a purple glow starting at his hand and moving to the hatch as it began shaking. A moment later, the biotic mass effect field warped the metal, peeling it back like a flower pedal and opening the way in.

Hammer took a knee and scanned the area with his rifle, "Get in there and grab that gizmo. I'll cover you." Dagger stowed her weapon as she climbed in and started searching. Hammer opened up on a pair of geth that peered over a nearby ridge, taking one out and causing the other to take cover. He set his weapon down to draw his sword, twirling it once in his hand as biotic energy surged over the blade. The Vanguard spun in an acrobatic flip once before snapping the blade out hard, sending the condensed shockwave cascading forward. The effect washed over the geth's cover and sent it flying backward from the concussive force.

"I've got it!" Dagger emerged from the destroyed vehicle with the transport pack containing the experimental power source, tossing it out of the vehicle before hopping out herself.

She shook her head as she set up her rifle on a concrete block, "I can't carry the pack. It would draw too much power from my suit for me to cloak."

Hammer fired a burst at another group of geth advancing on their position, "I can't wear it. If I put that thing on, I can't Charge. It buggers up my mass ratio." He fired another burst to keep their heads down, "Let's just hold position until the rest of the team gets here. We can slap it on Sword's back then."

On the note of the rest of the team, they had their hands full with a number of geth squads that had taken up position on top of a nearby collapsed building and were raining down heavy fire that included rockets. They were forced to move from cover to cover just to keep from getting cratered, and it was slowing them down.

Delta fired a long burst before ducking down to reload, "Sword! Give me a frag on that position!" The marine followed the order as he launched a multi-frag over his cover. The grenade split into its fragments before exploding above the geth's heads, dropping several of them. Unfortunately, many were replaced as reinforcements came to support the position.

"Fang, can you do anything?"

The Adept dropped down behind her cover to avoid fire and cooled her rifle, "I can't set up a chain. They're too spread out."

Delta looked behind him, "Tech, I need a full spread of arcs on that line!" Tech stood and threw three arc grenades up to the geth position, dropping shields and shorting out a number of geth platforms. The D2 team stood and opened fire in an effort to punch a hole to move through.

Suddenly, heavy fire came down from above, gunning down the geth position hard. The D2 team looked around for the source of the fire to find a group of shuttles descending on the area. Rather than the blue-marked shuttles of the Alliance, these Kodiaks were colored in white and yellow with an elongated hexagonal emblem on the side. They hit the ground and started dropping soldiers wearing armor that matched their shuttles, their voices disguised through anonymizers in their helmets. They dropped into the area and opened fire on the Division 2 team.

"Cerberus?" Sword dropped behind a fallen concrete pillar for cover, "What are these creeps doing here?"

Delta shook his head, "Who cares. Let's show them they're not welcome. Light them up!" The team came up and opened fire on the Cerberus assault troopers, dropping several of them like a bad habit. Just as they fell, smoke grenades went off all around the formation, completely concealing them from view. The Cerberus troops kept firing through the smoke while the D2 team was forced into cover again. As they hunkered down, a pair of combat engineers set up their turrets on tactical high ground such that they could keep the team pinned down. They wouldn't be able to move until those turrets were taken care of.

Sword's armor took a hit and he ducked down to let his shields recharge, "We gotta keep moving! Hammer and Dagger need backup!"

Delta's eyes widened behind his faceplate, "Oh no…"

"What? What is it?"

He looked at Sword, "That's why they're here! They're after the power source. They're pinning us down so we can't rendezvous with team 3!" He pointed toward the smoky battle line, "Sword, start working on that right turret! Tech, get to work on that left turret! Fang, start a detonation chain on those troopers! We've got to get out of this!"

Further away, Hammer and Dagger had their hands full as a group of geth tried to advance on them. A combined Biotic and Electric Slash spread across the formation took most of them out before precision fire finished the job.

Hammer cooled his rifle and looked around, "Where the heck is the rest of the team? They should've been here by–" He never finished his thought as a flash of purple energy heralded the Vanguard flying backward, smashing into the side of a destroyed vehicle hard enough to dent it inward. In his place, there stood someone in a black and yellow suit of form-fitting armor and a sword across his back. He stood bent low with his elbow extended, likely a follow-up pose from the Biotic Charge that just sent Hammer for a spin in the garbage. He was clearly a Cerberus Phantom, one of the rare male specimens among their ranks. He didn't wear a helmet, but his eyes were concealed by ocular implants that glowed an eerie red when he looked at you, and his tight black hair was shot with blonde streaks.

Dagger aimed her rifle at him, "Get back! I'll kill you if I have to."

The operative slowly and dramatically stood as he drew his sword, "You'll try. You'll fail." His voice was low with a British roll to it, "Give me that device, and I'll consider letting you live."

"Not an option." Dagger kicked the power source behind her to keep it away from him, "I won't tell you again. Stand down or I put you down."

The operative slowly twirled his sword in one hand as he started to circle Dagger, "I warned you once, and I don't like repeating myself. Get out of my way, or I go through you."

"Then you'll have to go through me."

He looked at her from the corner of his eye and accompanied the devilish red glow with a sadistic smile, "It would be a genuine pleasure." He blurred into motion, bringing his blade around for an overhand strike. Dagger raised her rifle to block it, but found it useless when the blade sliced clean through the weapon. She'd succeeded in deflecting the strike, but her Black Widow was useless now. She tossed the pieces of the rifle aside and quickly drew her own sword just in time to stop another overhand strike. The two blades flicked sparks as they bucked off of each other, the mono-molecular edges trying and failing to cut through each other. The Phantom rolled his blade around backhand and spun low to sweep his sword through Dagger's legs. She jumped and rolled over the strike, coming to her feet a couple of meters away. She drew a pistol from her hip and unloaded it on the Cerberus operative. He advanced on her quickly with his hand held forward, a faint purple biotic field in front of him deflecting all the bullets. He swung his sword to slice the barrels of Dagger's pistol clean off before coming around for another strike that she parried. The fight kept on as a continuous blur of strike, counter-strike, and parry as both opponents, both augmented for increased reflexes and speed, tried to get a hit in. Dagger was faster, but the Phantom was stronger, and unfortunately his strength was holding out over her speed. Hammer came to on the junk pile he found himself on and shook his head to clear it as he slowly sat up. He looked around to find Dagger and the Phantom engaged in a sword fight and started scrambling to his feet to help her.

Hammer got to his feet just in time to watch. Dagger deflected several of the Phantom's strikes, but the last one was meant to be deflected. Her blade struck his hard and threw her arm aside to open her guard. The Phantom turned to rotate around under her guard and behind her, crossing his sword arm over his body to stab the blade under his other arm. Dagger stiffened as the blade pierced through her hard-suit, coming through her gut from behind. Hammer watched in horror as the world seemed to slow down in that moment. The Phantom pulled his sword out, allowing Dagger to fall to her knees. She fell over on her side as the Cerberus operative stepped over her and kicked open the transport pack containing the power source, lifting the small glowing device out and setting it on his belt. Rage boiled in Hammer's guts as he clambered through the debris and he screamed as he Charged the Phantom in a swell of purple energy. The Phantom looked and saw Hammer advancing, and he vanished in a purple flash. Hammer flew through the place his target had been and went rolling across the ground for several meters with nothing to transfer his kinetic energy into. He stood and looked around, finding the operative on a nearby collapsed building. He nodded to Hammer once, his eyes glowing eerily, before turning and walking away with the device.

The Vanguard quickly ran to Dagger's side, calling up his omni-tool and queuing up some medi-gel before he even got there. She was lying in a pool of her own blood as he knelt down beside her and set the applicator on her wound. Hammer could tell from the position that it was only a flesh wound, but she could bleed out if not treated, and she'd already lost a lot of blood. He couldn't remove her helmet for caution of revealing her identity on a covert operation, but he could see she was barely conscious and losing the fight. He levered her up and laid her head on his shoulder while activating the medi-gel.

Dagger's head fell and Hammer shook her to keep her awake, "No, no, no! Stay with me, Dagger. I need you to stay with me. Stay in the fight. Come on now." He looked around frantically before opening his comm, "Hammer to team. We lost the precious cargo and Dagger is down! Repeat: man down! Need immediate assistance! I say again: lost precious cargo and man down! Does anyone copy?"

The rest of the team was still occupied with Cerberus suppression forces, keeping them pinned down and immobile. One of the turrets was scrapped, but the combat engineers were keeping the other one operational. Every time the team damaged it, the engineers would just repair it. Delta was ready to lob another incinerator charge when suddenly the Cerberus forces all around them broke from cover and retreated. The engineers packed up the remaining turret and left with everyone else. They all retreated and jumped into their shuttles, gone just as fast as they arrived.

Sword stood from behind his cover, "They're falling back. Did we get them?"

Delta shook his head, "I don't think so. I've got a bad feeling about this."

Nearby, Fang was still knelt behind her cover, one hand to her ear, before she looked at the others, "Commander, you need to hear this." She patched him in.

Delta raised a hand to the side of his helmet as he heard Hammer's voice come over the comm, "_I say again: precious cargo is lost and Dagger is down! We need immediate assistance! I don't know how much longer she'll last! Need assistance! Is anyone on this channel?_"

Delta cut the channel and looked at his team, "Sword, Fang, get to their position and get them back here. Tech, you and I are securing an LZ. I'm sending the evac signal now. Go!" Sword and Fang both took off at their best sprints to rendezvous with Hammer and Dagger. Fang quickly outran Sword as the larger marine ran as best he could in his heavy armor. Fang arrived first, sliding to a stop and kneeling down to assess Dagger's condition. Sword arrived a moment later and stood over them.

Fang shook her head, "She's barely conscious and still losing blood. We need to get her to the _Bunker Hill_ ASAP." More gunfire erupted from a dozen meters away. The geth had regrouped from the Cerberus attack and were on the advance again.

"Cover me." Sword stowed his weapon and carefully but quickly hefted Dagger's petite form into his arms before turning to run for the LZ, Hammer and Fang doing a fighting retreat to cover him. Sword was the strongest on the team, both in and out of the T-5V suit, so he was best suited to carry a wounded team member. When they arrived, the shuttle was already hovering a meter above the ground at the LZ, Delta and Tech waving them in. The D2 team hopped into the shuttle before it rose into the air and flashed away. They laid Dagger across several seats and applied another round of medi-gel to try to stabilize her. The pilot started making the call for medical personnel on-site when they land as Delta looked around at his team. Everything that could have gone wrong on a mission just did. It wasn't going to be pretty…

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"…We evaced from the AO, and got out on the shuttle. The mission was scrubbed. There was nothing else we could do."

Zeus nodded slowly, "I'll make note of all that in my report. Make sure Dagger is okay then gather everyone into the conference room for debriefing. I'll call this in to HQ and then see if there's any way we can salvage the situation."

Delta went about gathering the Division 2 team into the _Bunker Hill_'s conference room. Everyone was unnervingly quiet, most of them concerned for Dagger in the med bay. The doctors were working on her to try to repair the damage done by the Phantom's blade. What made things even more unnerving was that Zeus was taking longer than normal in making his report. Something was wrong; they could all feel it. Hammer was even quieter than normal, just sitting in his chair staring at the wall in front of him. Something had hit him on that mission, something that was just now sinking in.

Small talk was all but nonexistent as the glass doors finally opened and Zeus came in. He had a sullen look on his face, also a rather bad indicator. He went to his seat at the end of the table, setting his datapad down and standing behind the chair.

He took a deep breath before speaking, "I've got good news and bad news."

Sword huffed, "After that last mission, we could use some good news first."

Zeus nodded, "I just came from the med bay. The doctors told me they were able to stop the bleeding and Dagger is going to be fine. She'll be out of action for a while to recover, but she's going to make it." There was an audible sigh of relief from across the team at hearing that their team member and friend was going to be okay.

Delta leaned forward on the table, "And the bad news?"

Zeus hung his head, running his hand through his hair, "Before going to the med bay, I was on the line with the director of N7. He's shutting Division 2 down." A wave of surprised gasps came from everyone present.

Fang shook her head, "What? Why?"

"He says that the team's track record doesn't justify the resource expense. He's shutting Division 2 down. The team is going to be disbanded and you'll all be transferred back to your old units."

Sword banged his fist on the table, "This _is_ our unit, major! He can't break up the team! This is bullcrap!"

Zeus waved down the rising tempers, "I'm going to try to talk him out of it. I can't make any promises, though. He's ordering us back to base." He huffed once, "We have our orders. All we can do is hope for the best at this point." He grabbed his datapad and left the room.

Everyone was quiet as they brooded over the brass' decision. Some weren't as silent about their protests as others.

Sword banged his fists on the table again, "We were ambushed! This isn't fair!"

"We know it's not fair, lieutenant." Delta shook his head, "But the major was right. We have our orders. Unless something can be done, we have to follow them."

Zeus was furious as he stormed down the hall through the war room and into the comms room. He was determined to try to change the director's mind. He pressed the button on the console to send the hail to the base. A moment later, the image of an older man in an Alliance dress uniform, a colonel, materialized on the hologram pad behind the console.

He folded his hands behind his back, "_Maj. Fitzgerald. I recall just being on the line with you less than half an hour ago. What may I ask is the problem?_"

The major stood at parade rest, "Colonel, I'm requesting that you reconsider your decision to disband Division 2."

The director's brow hardened, "_I also specifically recall telling you that we weren't going to discuss this, major._"

"Sir, this needs to be discussed. My team has done nothing to warrant this course of action."

"_Your team has a thirty percent mission success rate. That, I think, is sufficient warrant to disband them._"

Zeus shook his head, "You've read the mission report, sir. They were ambushed. It wasn't their fault. The fact that they all made it out alive speaks highly in their favor."

"_I'm not just talking about the last mission, major. It's their whole record. They've only had one successful mission out of three._"

"Their first mission was successful, sir."

"_But a circus that nearly SNAFUed. Look at this how I see it, major. Your team has received millions of credits worth of training and equipment only for a thirty percent return on that investment. I'm left with no other option than to disband the Division 2 team and put its personnel in places where they'll be more useful._" The director shook his head, "_I'm sorry that your little experiment failed, major, but we have more important things to be devoting resources to than a little six-man party club. We need assets that will work._"

The major shook his head again, "Sir, need I remind you that you personally requested Division 2 for this mission."

"_Clearly an error in judgment that needs to be fixed. And now it has been._"

"You're disbanding Division 2 just to cover a 'bad decision' on your part?" Zeus frowned hard, "This is chicken crap, colonel. You're shutting them down for something that wasn't their fault and making them a scapegoat. This isn't fair."

"_No, it's the military. You have your orders, major. I suggest you see to them. We will not be discussing this again_." The hologram vanished, the signal terminated at its source. Zeus leaned his hands on the rail and hung his head. This wasn't fair, to him or his team. This last mission's failure wasn't their fault, but they were being penalized for it anyway. And what was worse, there was nothing anyone could do. They had orders and no alternatives.

"Major." Zeus looked up at hearing his rank to find the captain of the _Bunker Hill_ standing in the door to the comms room.

He jerked his head out to the war room, "Could I have a word, sir?"

Zeus shrugged, "Sure." He followed the captain out to the war room's hologram display.

The captain started pushing buttons on the main console, "I thought you might like to know that some of my analysts managed to trace the Cerberus shuttles. They triangulated their FTL vector, accounted for course masking, and sprinkled in a dash of gut-feeling for good measure and came up with this." The hologram highlighted their present position before tracing a line through two systems before terminating in a small cluster not even half a day's flight away, "Intel reports indicate that there's an unmarked, unregistered facility on a planet in that cluster. I'd bet a year's salary it's a Cerberus facility. The trace ends there, so I'd guess your device is somewhere on-site."

The major leaned on the edge of the projector, "Why are you telling me this, captain?"

"I can tell what's going on between you and the higher brass, major, and it isn't fair to you or the team. I'm not going to spend my and my crew's time and effort shuttling a good team like this around just for them to get screwed over by some desk-jockeying dress uniform. I'm simply making this information available to you. What you do with it is entirely up to you." He turned to leave the room, "By the way, I've been ordered to transport you back to base. I think you should know that our course will be taking us right through that cluster."

Zeus looked up at the captain, "That cluster is in the opposite direction from the base, captain."

He shrugged as he walked out, "Is it? I hadn't noticed."

The major looked at the hologram in front of him and his brow hardened. He was wrong before. They had orders, but now they had an alternative. This was their chance to set this right and finish this mission. He grabbed his datapad, copied the information from the projector onto it, and turned to leave the war room.

The D2 team was all still gathered in the conference room mostly on account that they had nothing better to do. They were all facing the grim reality of it. The team was going to be disbanded, they were going to be split up, and they'd likely never see each other again. They'd all grown during their time on this team, but it was more than learning to work together. They weren't just soldiers with matching hard-suits, and they weren't just a team. They had become friends, and the idea of not being able to work together anymore was unthinkable.

"This sucks!" Sword stood abruptly from his chair, toppling it backward, pacing a circle away from the table, "We're getting the boot for something that's not our fault! We've done our best and we're getting screwed for it."

Delta slammed his fist on the table, "There's nothing we can do about it, Sword! It's over! It's done! We have our orders. Now we have to follow them and move on."

"Please," Fang shook her head, "I'm sure letting tempers flare isn't going to solve this. Isn't there some kind of appeal we can make?"

Delta cut his hand through the air, "There's nothing we can do! The decision's been made. The mission's over."

"This mission isn't over yet." Zeus walked into the room to his spot at the table, "It's just been delayed. We've caught a break." He set his datapad down and called up the info on it on the screen behind him, "Some of the ship's crew have traced the Cerberus shuttles that hit you guys to a small planet in the system on the screen. There's a very good chance the power source we were sent to get is there. We have a chance to go in and get it out."

Delta furrowed his brow, "Did the director change his mind?"

Zeus shook his head, "The director's previous order still stands, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. We have a chance to set this right, and I have a good mind to take it. I know I'm asking you all to disobey orders on this. That's why I'm making this a volunteer mission. If you feel that this is a breach in our orders, you will not be required to participate and your objections will be duly noted."

Hammer leaned forward on the table, "You're going to catch a lot of flak for this, major."

Zeus chuckled lightly, "Hammer, I've been told more times than I care to remember that I could be an admiral by now, and the only reason I'm not is because I piss people off. Do you really think I give a dang about what this is going to do to my career?" He looked around at his team, making eye contact with each one present, "This isn't just because I put a lot of effort into getting this division put together, which I did. It's because I can see now that I did indeed get the best for this team. You guys are the best, and you deserve the best. Cerberus witch-slapped you guys in the face and left Dagger laid up in the med bay to add injury to insult. And as the cherry on top, the director is ordering you to disband in order to cover his own backside for requesting you on a failed mission. We have the chance to make this right. What do you say?"

The room was quiet for a moment before Sword spoke up, "I'm with you, sir. We need to fix this. The brass can get in line to kiss my butt later. I'm in."

Zeus smiled as he looked to the next in line, "Delta?"

The German commander shrugged, "You said we're the best. I think it's time to prove it to everyone."

"Fang?"

She leaned back in her chair with a sigh, "Under normal circumstances, I'd be citing regulations and going on record in protest. However, I've been around the block enough times to see that the circumstances aren't normal. I say we do it. Let the regulations catch up with us after we've set this right."

"Tech?"

She shrugged lightly, "I'm always game to blow something up."

Zeus chuckled, "I'll take that as a 'yes'." He looked at the last of them, "Hammer?"

The Irishman shrugged, "You know me, major. I can't help but cause trouble."

He looked at everyone and nodded, "That's it then. We tear Cerberus a new butthole, get that device back, and very likely line up for court-marshal when we get back to base. Everyone get prepped and get some rest if you can. We'll be on-site in sixteen hours." The major put his fist toward the center of the table, "Division 2."

Everyone else's fists joined his, "Dang few!"

The team stood and left the room to prepare for this impromptu, maybe even renegade, mission. They all knew what it meant. It was a chance to get this black mark off their record, but it was in defiance of a direct disband order, which would definitely have repercussions. But that didn't matter to the D2 team. Cerberus' actions had just been insulting, and now they were going to repay the favor in kind. Their lot was cast. There was no going back now.


	6. Chapter 6

6

The _Bunker Hill_ came out of FTL and sped toward the planet where the Cerberus instillation was. They could stay hidden as long as they didn't do anything rash. It wasn't just the Division 2 team, but the entire crew of the _Bunker Hill_ that was going rogue for this mission. It proved to the D2 team that they had the support of their transporting captain and crew, which was no small boost to their resolve.

The team was assembled in the shuttle awaiting the drop. Over in the corner, Hammer sat by himself looking at a device he was working around in his hands. It was Dagger's sword, the blade collapsed into the hilt in a more easily transported configuration.

Fang looked at him as she pulled her hood up, "Hammer? Are you all right?"

The question went unanswered as the Vanguard's mind went back to the events of less than an hour ago. He'd just finished gearing up and was passing the med bay on his way to the lift, but he turned in to go see the room's occupant. The doctor recognized Hammer's armor and silently directed him to the last bed in line before stepping out. Hammer went down the row to find Dagger on the last bed. She'd been stripped out of her infiltration hard-suit and dressed in a patient's gown, her waist wrapped up in bandages. An IV led from her right hand to a container hanging above her. Hammer set his helmet at the foot of the bed before leaning on it gently. Dagger stirred with the motion and turned her head to look at him.

She nodded subtly to him, "Come to check on me?"

Hammer returned the nod, "How you doin', lass?"

"As well as can be expected for having been stabbed through the back." She shifted in the bed and winced in pain with doing so, "The doctor's been keeping me up to date. I hear you're all going on a mission…unauthorized."

The Vanguard nodded again, "Aye. Unauthorized. We're gonna find the Cerberus pricks who screwed us over and get that device back. Kind of against the director's orders, though." He hung his head and huffed a harsh breath.

Dagger touched his hand, "What's wrong, Andrew?" Her use of his name rather than his codename indicated that this was no longer an official conversation and had shifted to personal; not soldier to soldier, but friend to friend.

Hammer shook his head, "I'm sorry, Sara. I screwed up again. The first time, on that first mission, it wasn't that bad and some good came of it. But this time, I wasn't there for you again, and it nearly got you killed. I'm your partner; I'm supposed be there and have your back. But I wasn't there again and you got a sword through it." He shook his head, "I'm sorry. I told you I'm no good at this 'partner' thing."

Dagger shook her head as best she could, "You were incapacitated before that Phantom attacked me. If not for that, I'm certain you would have been there to help me take him down. You're a better partner than you think, Hammer. I trust you with my life."

The beginnings of a smile cracked at the corners of Hammer's mouth, "It means a lot to hear you say that, lass. Thanks." He glanced at the door, "I've gotta get goin'. Zeus is goin' to have everyone gathered in the shuttle bay soon."

"Before you go." Dagger reached over to her things and grabbed her sword, "You're going to that Cerberus facility to get the power source back. If you run into that scumbag Phantom who got me," She pressed a button on the pommel to collapse the blade into the handle before handing it to Hammer, "Give him my regards."

He accepted the weapon with a hard look in his eye, "You bet I will." He stood and grabbed his helmet, "You take care, lass. We'll be back before you know it."

"Hammer?"

Fang's voice brought the Irishman out of his reverie as he set the collapsed sword on his belt and nodded, "I'm fine. Ready for round two with those sod-munchers."

"Sounds good to me, Hammer." Zeus closed the side door before taking a seat facing his team. He was accompanying them in the shuttle on this mission because it was the only time they had to get a good briefing in.

Delta sat down and set his helmet between his feet as the shuttle lifted off, "So what are we dealing with, boss?"

"Intel came in ten minutes ago. I had to call in a few favors to get it." The major set a holo-projector in the middle of the floor and activated it, bringing up an image of a structure in the side of a mountain, "We're headed to a Cerberus fighter base. As far as I can tell, they're staging the power source here until they can ship it to a secure facility somewhere else. This is our only chance to get it back. DZ is here." He highlighted a landing platform near the edge, "The device is here, deeper in the facility. This looks like the most direct route to it." A red line drew from the DZ to the device, "Which means you can bet your bottom dollar that there's going to be every security measure in the universe between you and it. However, there's an alternative." A blue line drew from the DZ to the device along a much less direct route, "This appears to be a series of maintenance passages. With enough firepower, you should easily be able to get through there. The problem will be here, in this atrium in front of the vault. It's going to take time to get through that door and you're going to have every trooper in this hemisphere gunning for you by then."

Delta nodded, "We'll deal with it. Exfil?"

"You come back through the backside of the security for direct access to the LZ. It should be easy to take out from the wrong way. The facility is buried in the mountain, so we'll lose radio contact once you're inside." Zeus looked at every team member, "You're going in hot and heavy. Dispatch all resistance with extreme prejudice. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I want you guys to leave a trail of bodies and destruction through that facility. We need to send a message that everyone's going to hear and no one's going to forget."

The commander nodded with a devilish smirk, "It'd be a pleasure, sir." He put his fist in the center, "Division 2."

The team's fists joined his, "Dang few!"

The pilot looked back, "Coming up on the drop. The neighbors are home, so be ready for some fire."

"Bring it." Sword jammed a fresh clip pack into his Typhoon, "I'm dying to kill me some Cerbies."

Delta motioned to the door, "You get your wish, Sword. On the door. You'll need to help punch a hole for us to deploy."

"Hold that thought." Zeus tapped the pilot's shoulder, "Give the DZ a good hose-down first. Let's let them know we're here."

The pilot nodded, "Yes, sir. Passengers brace for fire." He lined the shuttle up with the Cerberus platform and opened up with the side guns just as the troopers on patrol noticed it. The opening spread blasted all of the largest clusters of soldiers, sending troopers flying in all directions and the rest scurrying for cover. The bombardment continued steadily, destroying everything on the platform and surrounding area. A fighter on standby went up in a cloud of flame as a round pierced its fuel tank and an ordnance palette exploded a moment after, taking several nearby arms crates with it. By the time the pilot was done with the "hose-down", there was nothing left alive and just about everything was destroyed and burning.

Zeus patted the pilot's shoulder, "Good shooting, marine." He looked back at the D2 team, "Squad, prepare for drop!" The side door opened as the shuttled descended on the smoking landing pad and the five-man team jumped out and deployed to hold the area. The shuttle ascended again to minimum-safe distance, far enough out to avoid fire but close enough to be there in a pinch.

Delta jabbed his hand toward the first maintenance hatch, "Tech, I want that hatch relocated. Everyone else, cover her." The team ran to the hatch and deployed defensively as Tech knelt down in front of it. She reached to her back and pulled off a small circular device that she slapped on the door and pushed a button, starting it flashing with red lights.

She stood and motioned everyone back, "You might want to get clear." She followed her own instructions and took cover as the device beeped once before blasting the door to pieces. Everyone looked over their cover to find the door and nearly a meter of surrounding frame gone.

Fang looked at Tech, "What the bloody heck did you use?"

"A little explosive cocktail of my own invention. I've been itching to test it. The mixture looks a little weaker than I expected, though."

"That mix was weak?" Sword looked at the hole with wide eyes behind his faceplate, "I'd hate to see what you serve at a bar."

Delta motioned everyone through, "The door's open. Let's go." The team ran through the door just as a Cerberus response team came through one of the facility doors and opened fire on them. Sword and Fang briefly returned fire before ducking through the hole.

The assault troopers ran after them, "_They're in the maintenance tunnels! Seal them off!_"

The D2 team kept running through the tunnels for several dozen meters until a pair of security doors slammed shut in front of them. They turned around to see another door shut behind them. They could all see on their suit sensors that troopers were massing on the other sides.

Delta looked at his Demolisher, "Tech?"

She shook her head, "Too confined. The blast would kill us, too."

"There is another way." Fang stowed her rifle as she stepped into the middle of the chamber, "An unstable mass effect field will weaken the doors, followed by a push to throw them outward. I can rip them right out of the walls."

The commander nodded, "Do it."

"Not alone, you're not." Hammer stowed his rifle as he joined her, "You and I both know that one biotic alone can't break those doors, lass. I'll back you up."

Fang nodded to him, "Then we do it together." The two biotics stood with their backs to one another as they both reached their hands toward the doors on either side of them. A powerful purple flash engulfed their bodies before quickly snapping to the doors. Within a moment, the security doors started to shutter and strain, and a subtle shriek of warping metal could be heard. The doors began vibrating more as the fields intensified, and the warping could be seen as well as heard. The strain was evidenced on the casters, as well, as both Fang and Hammer began to shake from the exertion.

On the other side, the Cerberus troopers amassing to take out the Alliance commandos started backing up slowly as they saw the doors start to warp and twist from the inside. Suddenly, the security doors ripped out of their slides and flew into the Cerberus formation, crushing several troopers and scattering the rest. The D2 team opened fire both in front and behind to take out the remaining troopers that hadn't been smashed by flying metal.

Delta looked at his biotics, "Are you all right?" Both were leaned over with hands braced on their knees from the exertion.

Fang nodded after a moment, "I just need a moment to catch my breath." She looked at Hammer, "You?"

The Vanguard nodded as he stood up, "I'll be fine. Just don't get between me and the galley when we get back to the ship."

Sword waved them onward, "We gotta move. They'll be regrouping to try again. Let's go." They waited only long enough for Fang to catch her breath before they started moving again, resuming their progress toward the vault where the experimental power source was being held.

The team took a bend to the left and came into an open chamber where Delta snapped up his fist, bringing everyone to an abrupt halt. Standing in front of them was a lone Cerberus operative in black armor carrying a sword. Hammer tensed when he recognized the sadistic glowing red eyes. It was the same Phantom who'd stabbed Dagger. The team raised their rifles on him and he raised his hand in return, a pulsating energy focusing in his palm in the form of a Phase Disruptor.

Sword kept his Typhoon on him, "I say we drop him, boss."

The Phantom smiled as he shook his head, "I wouldn't do that. Tends to get messy. Besides, I don't want all of you." He pointed his sword at Hammer, "I just want him."

Hammer lowered his rifle and stepped forward, "Everybody go. I got this."

Delta shook his head, his rifle still on the Phantom, "We're a team, Hammer. We're not leaving you here."

The Vanguard looked at his CO and shook his head, "I gotta finish this. For Dagger."

The commander was quiet for a moment before nodding slowly, "Good luck, Hammer. We'll be back for you." He motioned everyone else around the Phantom, "Let's move." The Phantom kept his Disruptor on them until they were clear of the room before turning his attention to Hammer.

He twirled his sword once, "When I saw the intruder alerts, I was hoping it was you. I wanted to get a piece of what you're made of. By the bye, how's that pretty little thing I left bleeding out doing?"

"She'll live." Hammer tossed his rifle aside before taking his own sword from his back.

The Phantom shrugged, "Pity. I suppose that means I'll have to hunt her down and complete the kill. I'll make sure of that after I've disposed of you."

Hammer shook his head, "I tend to disappoint people. For you, I'll offer full service, free of charge."

"Well then. Enough of the heroic banter. Let's get on with this, shall we. I have a schedule to keep." The Phantom took a fighting stance, crouching low with his feet far apart, his sword held behind him and his free hand forward. Hammer similarly took his stance, holding his sword forward and his free hand behind him, his feet shoulder-width apart and knees bent for balance. They both started a slow circle around each other, prowling like a pair of predators sizing each other up.

Hammer finally made the first move, Charging at full speed to attack. The Phantom defended himself with a biotic shield, instantly dispersed with Hammer's impact and no damage to either party. While it hadn't accomplished the intended purpose of flattening him, it had put Hammer within reach of his opponent. He struck for the Phantom's chest, stopped by his blade. The Vanguard slid his blade off the other, coming around in a circle to strike again from the same direction, again deflected by the Phantom's quick defense. Several more strikes were exchanged between them before the Phantom dropped low and scythed his foot through Hammer's legs, and he jumped to avoid the attack. However, when Hammer came down again, the Phantom shifted to his other hand, rolled over, and swung his other foot through, catching Hammer in the back of the knee. The kick sent him to the ground and he fluidly rolled backward on his shoulders to get back on his feet. Hammer stood and tried to take his stance again when he was hit hard in the chest, the Phantom's Biotic Charge sending him flying back to hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He fell off the wall and shook it off before taking his stance again, the Phantom doing the same. Hammer suddenly vanished in a phase-flash, reappearing right in front of the Phantom with his sword raised high to strike. The Phantom bent backward to dodge, Hammer's blade coming within centimeters of his neck. He turned the evasion into a handspring, nimbly somersaulting back to get clear. Hammer's brow hardened behind his faceplate. They were evenly matched. This fight wasn't going to end well.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Zeus stood next to the pilot in the shuttle looking over the situation board that gave him the skinny on what was going on with his team on the surface. Most of the team was still progressing toward the device, but they'd left Hammer behind in the maintenance tunnels for some reason, and his vitals indicated that he was in a pretty intense fight. Zeus trusted his team, though. Whatever reason they'd left Hammer by himself he was confident was mission-pertinent. He wished he could be helping them right now, but the team was deep inside a facility buried in the side of a mountain, and they had nothing to relay signals inside. That and being this close to a Cerberus fighter base necessitated that they observe full radio-silence. This shuttle was their only ticket off this rock, so they couldn't afford for it to be shot down.

A control on the comms panel started flashing, a long-range signal relayed from the _Bunker Hill_ in orbit. Zeus nodded to himself as he hit the button. He'd been expecting this call. He touched the control and a screen enlarged to reveal the N7 director.

"_Major, it's come to my attention that you and your team are not returning to base as you were ordered._"

Zeus nodded unashamedly, "That would be correct, colonel."

"_Most militaries aren't big fans of insubordination or disobedience, major, including this one. You'd better have a dang good explanation for your actions._"

"Our actions are justified, sir. Our mission was to acquire the power source. It has since been taken out of our reach for the time being. We're still pursuing our objective to reacquire the device."

"_The device is lost, major. Your mission is over. I'm ordering you and your team to stand down and return to base immediately._"

Zeus leaned closer to the screen, "Respectfully, sir, this mission isn't over until I say it's over. And I won't say it's over until we've either accomplished our objective or died trying. You said we need assets that work. This is me showing you that Division 2 works. And I'm not going to let you and your desk-jockeying bullcrap to get in the way of that. Now if you don't mind, I have people on the ground and I need to make sure they get home safely." He pushed a button that cut the channel, effectively hanging up on the director.

He looked at the pilot, "For the record, you never saw me do that."

The pilot shrugged, "Do what, sir? Comms on these shuttles cut out all the time."

Zeus smirked as he nodded, "Good man, marine."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The atrium outside the Cerberus high-security vault was quiet in spite of what was going on elsewhere in the base. The dozen troopers on duty all kept a wary eye on their surroundings, knowing that they were guarding a tier-1 asset. Everything was quiet until the wall across from the vault door suddenly exploded inward, killing four troopers and opening a hole large enough to fit a Mako through. The Division 2 team – presently Delta, Sword, Fang, and Tech – all poured through the hole and took up firing positions just inside, opening up on the surprised troopers. Three more went down before the shock and awe wore off, cutting their numbers by more than half. The remaining troopers didn't last long against the lethal combination of suppressive and precision fire the D2 team laid down over the large room. Once the room had been cleaned, Tech hit a control on her omni-tool that detonated another of her explosives over the hole they'd just made, collapsing a bunch of debris over the opening.

Delta pointed at the vault door, "Cover me while I get that thing open. Secure this room. Make it airtight." He turned and knelt in front of the door, calling up his omni-tool to start hacking in.

Sword took over seamlessly in light of Delta being occupied, "Okay, team, defensive formation. I'm front line. Fang, on my right flank. Tech, left flank. Take them as they come through the doors. Holler if you need help." Everyone took up covered positions behind the combat shields the Cerberus troopers had been so kind to set up for them. It was nearly two long minutes before they saw sparks coming from the seams of the two doors into the atrium, telltale signs of enemy forces about to cut in. Everyone steeled themselves, waiting for the inevitable surge of Cerberus assault troopers about to blast through those doors.

The sparks stopped briefly before the doors exploded inward. The smoke hadn't even cleared before Cerberus forces started filing through. They started with a pair of Guardians at each door to draw fire followed by several troopers and Centurions who laid down smoke screens to cover their movements. The D2 team took a moment to adjust their helmet visors, adding filters for smoke that would allow them to at least see their targets even if they weren't able to scan them. The first wave of Guardians didn't last long. Both Sword's and Tech's rifles were set up for armor-piercing and Fang's throw was strong enough to knock their shields aside long enough for a kill shot. The first four Guardians dropped like flies only to be replaced with four more coming through the smoke-covered doorways. The supporting troops around them did their best to lay down suppressing fire to give the Guardians a chance to advance. Fang targeted the troopers and Centurions while Sword and Tech made full use of their armor-piercing weapons to keep the Guardians at bay. No matter how many they killed, they just kept coming, wave after wave with no thought of self-preservation. Sword reloaded his Typhoon and shook his head. This fight was not going to end well for one party or the other.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Hammer spun in a spiraling slash aimed at the Phantom's waist and legs only for him to dance evasively over and around the strike. He came around behind Hammer and reached his hand toward his back, throwing him forward with a powerful biotic thrust. Hammer rolled forward with the blow, coming to a stop face down, and he slowly picked himself up to keep fighting. He was getting tired and hungry from his biotic exertions, and he hadn't had a chance to break into his stash of ration bars to counter it. What he also knew was that that was all part of the plan. He'd been able to identify a glaring weakness in the Phantom's attack, that being hubris. It wasn't the operative's technique that was flawed, but his psychology. While Hammer was getting tired, he was playing it up, making it look worse than it was in order to lull the Phantom into a false sense of security. It seemed to be working, and now it was all a matter of the right timing to spring the trap. If Hammer sprung too soon, the ploy would fail. If he sprung too late, he'd be dead. Hammer stood, but fell to one knee, playing up his fatigue.

The Phantom twirled his sword as he paced slowly, taking a quick deep breath, "I must say I've rather enjoyed this spat. I'd heard that N7 soldiers were the best of the Alliance, and I was eager to get a piece of one. You are good, I'll give you that. But as I said before, I have a schedule to keep. Once I'm done with you, I'll deal with your little team, and then hunt down that petite little thing from before and finish what I started, and I have to accomplish it all in a short period of time. So if you'll kindly allow me to finish you off properly, I'll be on my way." The Phantom twirled his sword once before running at Hammer.

He closed the distance and reared back to swing when Hammer sprung the trap. He snapped his foot forward, catching the Phantom unexpectedly at the bottom of the shin and sending him to the ground. Hammer rose and caught him with a hand on the chest as he fell, pushing him up, around, and down to smash him to the floor on his back. He raised his sword to stab down and the Phantom rolled out of the way, getting the edge of the blade across his bicep as he moved. He rolled to his feet, looking in surprise at the blood on his arm. Hammer kept up the assault, grabbing Dagger's sword from his belt and deploying it to full length in addition to his own blade. He attacked the Phantom with both weapons, striking in a whirlwind of attacks that the surprised operative could barely defend against quickly enough, backing him into a wall. Hammer finally caught the Phantom's blade between his own and scissored the weapons hard, twisting the Phantom's blade out of his hand. Hammer twirled both swords to bring them back into position before stabbing them both forward, running them through the Phantom's chest and staking him to the wall. In spite of them being replaced with ocular implants, the surprise of the ferocity and precision of Hammer's assault clearly showed in the Phantom's eyes.

He heaved in a breath as blood leaked from his mouth, "You…you used…a second…"

"A second blade." Hammer nodded firmly, "My partner's blade, which means she helped kill you, too. All I had to do was appeal to that planet-sized ego of yours and the rest was easy." He twisted the first blade, "That's for my team." He twisted the second blade, "That's for Dagger." He pushed both blades deeper, "And that's because you pissed me off." He braced his foot on the Phantom's chest to yank both swords out, allowing the dying man to fall to the floor. He gave out with a last gasp, the eerie red glow of his eyes fading away for a final time.

Hammer walked to the center of the room and knelt down, placing the swords next to him on either side. He bowed his head and crossed himself as he remained silent for a long moment, crossing himself one more time before standing again. He quickly scarfed down a ration bar before grabbing his swords and his rifle, setting Dagger's back on his belt. He also grabbed the Phantom's sword; call it a trophy from a fallen opponent. He turned and headed for where the team went when they left. They were going to need his help. They were a team, and they were in this together, for better or worse.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Things weren't going well in the atrium. Delta's attempts to hack into the door's security were getting nowhere fast and the Cerberus troopers were getting out of hand. Delta was now hacking one-handed because he needed his omni-shield on his other arm to block incoming fire. Fang was running out of steam and hadn't had a chance to rest or eat anything, and Tech was running out of explosives that weren't reserved for their escape. Sword had only two more thermal packs left, and he was presently loading one of them into his weapon to give it a full load of ammo. Sword looked over his cover and frowned. There was now a line of six Guardians that was slowly advancing on them and followed by a group of troopers that were laying down suppressive fire over their shoulders. To top it off, there were a couple of Nemesis and some sharpshooting Centurions that were keeping them behind cover by dropping their barriers every time they showed themselves. They were too organized. They needed something that could set them off balance. If they couldn't, this was going to get ugly fast.

He looked back at Delta, "How's it coming, boss?"

The commander didn't look up from his omni-tool, "They're counter-hacking me. I can't get through."

Tech ducked behind her cover, "I'm overheated again!" She grabbed a heat sink from a pocket and snapped it onto the rifle to cool it before tossing it aside.

Fang shook her head from where she was in cover, "We're in a bad way, Sword!"

"Then we go down fighting, and take as many with us as we can! Keep at it!" Sword stood and fired again only for his shields to take a sudden dive from a shot from a Nemesis. He ignored it as he tried to lay down suppressive fire, but his shields collapsed a moment after, forcing him to take cover again. He cursed under his breath. If this was how the team was going down, they were going to leave a mark that was going to show for a long time.

The pile of debris covering the hole in the wall started to shake and glow in a purple light, causing Sword to stop firing and furrow his brow. Suddenly, about half of the debris blasted out across the Cerberus formation, flattening several troopers and one of the Guardians. A moment after, Hammer suddenly flashed into the room, smashing full Charge into one of the Guardian's back and throwing him forward against his own shield. He turned and decapitated another Guardian before leveling his rifle and opening up on a nearby pair of troopers. After riddling them full of bullets, Hammer turned and Charged again to smash into one of the Nemesis, dropping her shields and disorienting her. Sword stood from his cover and smiled. Hammer was back and he was doing what he does best: causing chaos.

"He's giving us a chance to regroup. Fang, take a breather." He fired a long burst into the fray before looking back at Delta, "Any luck, boss?"

Delta was quiet for a moment before cursing in German and killing his omni-tool, "The system's too tight. I'm not getting in any time soon. We need another way in." He stepped back and looked at the vault door for a moment before looking at Tech, "Do you have any charges left?"

She shrugged before firing again, "A few, but that door's too big to break with anything shy of a nuke."

"Not the door." He pointed along the edge, "Just the hinges. They may be a weak point."

Sword reloaded his weapon again, "You want to bet our last few demo charges on a hunch, sir?"

The commander shook his head, "We don't have a choice." He pointed at Tech, "Do it, and make it count." Tech set up the charges on the hinges of the door and motioned for everyone to stand back before taking cover herself. She hit the control and the charges detonated, mangling the door's hinges but not removing it as was hoped.

Delta looked at the destroyed hinges and nodded, "Sword! Get over here." He pointed at the damaged side of the door, "You're the closest thing we have to a Jaws of Life. Pry it open." The big marine nodded as he stowed his weapon and stepped up to wedge his fingers into the gap. His missile launcher and Devastator Mode both deactivated to give maximum power to his strength enhancement system. He strained with his first effort with no progress before he tried again. The subtle whir of his armor actuators straining could be heard as the door began to slide slowly open. The rest of the team covered him as he broke in. Fang had had a chance to rest and eat a ration bar and Hammer thrived on destruction. Every time he Charged a target, he could use the kinetic energy from the impact to regenerate his barriers, so he was set for a while. The other two – Tech and Delta – provided cover fire where possible, and the combined effect was keeping the Cerberus forces disorganized enough to keep them from making progress.

Delta looked back at Sword. He could be heard grunting with effort over the comm and sparks were starting to shoot from the joints of his armor, but he was getting the massive door to move. Finally, he wedged himself into the gap he'd made and heaved with both his arms against the door frame, snapping several locks and shoving the door open more than wide enough. He stepped aside and leaned forward on his knees to rest.

Delta slapped his shoulder, "Good job, soldier!"

"Thanks." Sword took a deep breath, "I'm pretty sure I ruptured something, though."

"Fang! Get that device!" She nodded at Delta's order before vanishing in a phase-flash.

Sword shook his head, "I'm never going to get used to how she does that." A moment later, Fang returned through the broken vault door with the power source transport pack on her back.

Sword looked at her and shrugged, "What? No zappy-flash teleport thingy this time?"

Fang pointed a thumb over her shoulder, "You try phasing with this thing buggering up your mass ratios."

"We've got what we came for. Let's get out of here." Delta motioned them away from the vault, "Tech, get to work on that door. Hammer, wrap it up. We're out here." The Vanguard executed a spinning slash that decapitated three troopers around him before phasing away to join up with the team while Tech started wiring the next door for their escape. There were three doors between them and the landing platform, and all of them were guarded. The first door blew open and the team pushed through, opening up on the half dozen troopers on guard. Sword launched a pair of multi-frags behind them to slow down pursuit while Tech went about setting up the next door. Delta got on a nearby console and activated the emergency doors behind them, further slowing pursuit and giving them a chance to breathe. The next door exploded, this time the debris burying several guards while the rest were gunned down hard.

"_Team, this is…do you read me?_" Zeus' voice came over the comm badly garbled as Tech wired the last door.

Delta put his hand to the side of his helmet, "This is Delta. You're weak, but we read you."

"_There's a…the next…need some heavy…Do you copy?_"

The commander called up his omni-tool and touched his comm unit on his belt to boost reception, "Say again, Zeus. No copy. Say again."

The signal cleared up a bit, "_Repeat: there's a pair of Atlases and a large group of troopers at the landing pad through the next door. You're going to need some heavy firepower to punch through. Do you copy?_"

Delta nodded, "We copy. We'll handle it." He looked at the team, "You heard him. COA?"

Sword looked around for a moment, "I've got an idea. Delta, can you transfer your omni-shield to my gauntlet?"

The commander shrugged, "Only for about two minutes. Why?"

"Two minutes is all I need." Delta shrugged before pressing several controls and his omni-shield appeared on Sword's arm.

Sword looked at Tech, "You have any explosives you can spare?"

Tech nodded as she produced a small charge, "It's one of mine. Be careful with it."

"I don't think 'careful' is going to apply here." He looked at the team biotics, "I need my mass reduced for about five seconds."

Fang reached toward him to set a mass-reducing field around him and Hammer scratched the side of his helmet, "Ya care to share what's goin' on in that noggin of yours, Sword?"

Anyone who could hear his voice could tell Sword was smiling, "Two words: freight train." He primed the charge and pointed at the door, "Blow the door and stay out of my way. Follow me through." Sword stowed his weapon and took up a sprint stance with the shield in front of him a few meters behind the door, "Ready."

Tech blasted the door off its hinges and Sword charged through at full tilt before the fire had even cleared. True to Zeus' word, there was a large group of assault troopers with a pair of Atlases behind them, and all of them opened fire at seeing the D2 team approaching. What they weren't ready for was a mass-reduced marine runaway freight train charging straight at them with a shield and a bomb. Sword closed the distance faster than his size should've allowed and shoulder-checked a bunch of troopers out of his way to clear the line. Once through, he raised the omni-shield just in time to take a direct hit from the Atlas he was charging at. The shield collapsed immediately, but his suit shields were still intact. The Atlas fired again, the near-miss dropping Sword's shields, but he kept running. He turned his shoulder just as the mass-reducing field Fang gave him wore off and smashed full-tilt into the Atlas' right leg, shoving it backward full-force and throwing the mech to one knee, a position the Atlas was never designed to take. As he ducked under and behind it, Sword slapped the explosive on the Atlas' back just under the power turbine before jumping forward and covering his head. The device exploded on time, blasting the mech into a million pieces. Sword felt pieces of debris rain down on his back before he rolled over and looked at his handiwork. The Atlas' torso had been blown clean off, leaving only the legs, which fell over harmlessly. The blast had also killed or incapacitated a lot of the supporting troopers. The D2 team had followed Sword in, finishing off the remaining troops while their comrade took down the Atlas. But there was still the problem of the second Atlas, and it was turning to take aim on Sword where he was.

Delta pointed at the second one, "Hard target! Take it down!" An arc grenade and an Energy Drain combined into a tech explosion to cave in the Atlas' shields quickly. Sword scrambled to his feet and drew his Tyhpoon, unloading the weapon at targeted weak points like joints and vents. Fang cast a Dark Channel on it before Hammer quickly followed up with a Biotic Slash, the two biotic fields combining for a dark energy explosion that blasted several pieces of armor off. Delta launched an incinerator charge that left the surface of the Atlas burning, followed up by a homing grenade that triggered a fire explosion and furthered the destruction. Finally, the massive machine had taken too much damage to vital systems and started shuttering and convulsing.

Tech waved everyone away, "It's going to blow! Take cover!" The D2 team got to cover just in time as the Atlas exploded violently, sending shockwave and debris in all directions. When they all came up to look, there was star-shaped blast pattern on the floor with nothing left bigger than a match box surrounding it. Everyone let out a whoop or cheer in celebration for their feat, taking on two Atlases and winning.

Celebration was short-lived as gunfire erupted from behind them, Cerberus troopers and another pair of Atlas mechs pouring out of the facility. The D2 team started a fighting retreat as they moved back to the landing pad where the shuttle had just showed up, the door opening and the side gun covering them. One of the Atlases loaded a rocket into its launcher and fired at the shuttle. The pilot pushed the shuttle up hard to evade the rocket before turning to bring the forward guns to bear on the mech, taking it down with a several direct hits. The shuttle then descended and lined up to take on passengers. The team piled in quickly before the pilot punched the throttle, taking off at full speed before the door had even closed.

Zeus turned around and stood up from the copilot seat, "Is everyone all right?"

Delta took a quick look around at the team and nodded to him, "_Ja_. Everyone's good."

"Did you get it?"

Fang detached her backpack and set it in the center of the compartment. Delta quickly hacked through the Cerberus security, allowing the pack to open. Zeus reached in and took the small, glowing experimental device out, looking it over to make sure it was undamaged.

He smiled as he looked at it, "Congratulations, team. You just gave the director of N7 the finger. Great job, everyone."

Sword unlocked and removed his helmet as he sat down, "You know we're gonna catch heck for this when we get back to base, right."

Fang pushed back her hood as she removed her mask, "I, for one, think it was worth it. We may have blown our careers sky high, but I think we can hold our heads high for setting things straight."

The team's token Vanguard just looked at the Phantom's sword in his hand for a moment before collapsing it, "We did what we came to do and got a little revenge at the same time. I think it was worth it. The brass can stick–"

"I'd hold off insulting the brass just yet, Hammer." Zeus looked back from the copilot's seat, "The _Bunker Hill_'s logs indicate that she received a new shuttle while we were gone. VIP. I'm thinking maybe the director himself is paying us a visit."

Hammer nodded, "Well, good. I can speak my mind to his face, then."

The shuttle rendezvoused with the _Bunker Hill_, setting down on the designated pad. Waiting for them as they landed was an older officer in full dress uniform with two bodyguards. The D2 team had already prepared themselves for this. They were fully expecting to be arrested on arrival, just not on the ship. Once they landed, the team filed out in a very orderly manner, forming a line in front of the director and standing at proper parade-rest before saluting. The director looked over the line of soldiers for a long moment before returning the salute and setting them at ease.

Zeus stepped forward with the power source, "Sir. The mission is now complete. We've acquired the objective." He handed the device to the colonel, who gave it to one of his bodyguards.

"Division 2 is now standing down, sir. We're surrendering for disciplinary action appropriate to our conduct."

The director shook his head, "That won't be necessary, major."

Zeus looked at him and narrowed his eyes, "Might I ask why, sir?"

The director walked slowly down the line, examining each soldier in the team as he went, "Division 2 has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion, major. You've proven that you are indeed the best of the best, but you've also proven that you have the drive to get the job done no matter what. Not only would you not let the enemy stand in your way, you wouldn't even let your own chain of command stop you from accomplishing your goal. I never realized just how highly motivated this team is until now." He looked at Zeus, "And that, major, is an asset that works."

Sword looked at him from his place in the line, "So…you're not disbanding the team, sir?"

"Ah, yes. That." The colonel shook his head, "I've rescinded that order, and I want to formally apologize for how I treated all of you. I wanted Division 2 shut down because of a personal issue with Maj. Fitzgerald, and you all didn't deserve that."

Fang furrowed her brow, "A personal issue, sir?"

"He pisses me off." The director shrugged, "With some convincing his part, I can see now that this division is one of the best assets under my command. Now that I've seen what you're capable of, I fully intend to make good use of you." He turned to face them all, "You do still have to report back to base, though not for disciplinary action. You'll be getting some well-deserved R&R until your team member is back on her feet, but you're back in the fray after that. There's plenty more work out there that needs a team of soldiers with your skill and drive." He smiled and nodded to them, "Well done, Division 2. Well done, indeed. Dismissed." With that, he turned to leave, followed by his bodyguards.

Sword pointed after the director, "Can you believe this guy? We set things straight and he's our best friend all of a sudden."

Zeus shook his head, "Suits and ties, lieutenant, but I think he's seen the light now. Just let him push his papers while we get the real work done. That's why I put this team together in the first place."

"Let's just hope he stays on our side from now on." Fang shrugged, "By the bye, is there any update on Dagger?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" The female voice with a Monacan-French accent didn't need to be identified as Dagger slowly limped up to the team. She was wearing a set of Division 2 BDUs and was walking on a crutch. Fang darted over to the Shadow to hug her.

Hammer took the Phantom's sword from his belt and handed it to her, "Thought you'd want to know I got a souvenir for you why we were out."

She pushed it away, "Keep it. You're the one who took him down."

"With your help." Hammer handed Dagger her own sword, also, "You have just as much right to it as I do."

Delta came over and took the collapsed sword to look at it, "You know, maybe we should all keep it. A reminder of what we did as a team. A trophy."

The Irish Vanguard shrugged, "Couldn't have said it better myself."

"I think we'll do that." Zeus took the sword and nodded, "I'll have this framed and put on a wall when we get back to base. It's a good reminder, not just for us, but for everyone who sees it."

Tech canted her head, "Of what we can accomplish as a team?"

"No." Zeus smiled, "Of the fact that Division 2 kicks butt!"

Sword put his fist in the middle of the group, "Division 2!"

"Dang few!" He was joined by everyone else in the team cheer, including Dagger and Zeus. They had sent the message they wanted to send. There was no question in anyone's mind now that Division 2 was the best.

They were the best, handpicked to fill a special role. Now everyone knew they were the best. When this team put their mind to a task, they were unstoppable. The Reapers knew it. The geth knew it. Cerberus knew it. And now, even their own director knew it. Fewer people, less red tape, more work gets done. That's how they roll in Division 2 of N7.


End file.
